Pathogen: 100 word challenge
by SamanthaHawkins
Summary: 100 short stories featuring the characters from "Pathogen", each chapter inspired by a single word.
1. Chapter 1

**1: Beginning**

"Helen! Come on!" Sestiva called, waving over a hand so Helen would hurry up. "We're going to be late for class!"

"I'm coming, Sestiva, slow down." Helen replied. "This is only our first day so don't expect anything exciting to happen. Oh, and remember to meet up at the fountain afterword!"

"Okay, see you later, Helen!"

Sestiva smiled widely as she walked into the Witchdoctor's Sanctum. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of boiling potions and smoke. There were shelves upon shelved of potions that Sestiva couldn't imagine making on her own. Many pillows around the room sat around on the floor, while other kids Sestiva's age tossed them around, squealing and laughing while playing with them.

Sestiva continued to look around the room. There was not a single person that wasn't her age, so that must have meant that the older, more advanced witchdoctors had class at a later time period.

"Welcome, everyone!" A voice rang out, and everyone stopped throwing pillows and went silent. "My name is Madam Vadima, and I shall teach you all the skills that a witchdoctor needs in order to go on missions. After you master a certain number of techniques, you will be allowed to go on missions with my supervision. Master even more of them and you'll get to go alone. So…who's ready for our first lesson?"

A cheer erupted from the girls and boys sitting in front of her. Sestiva on the other hand, just sat there, lost in thought.

"Alright, everyone, let's take out our staffs." Vadima instructed, and watched as everyone took out their staffs from behind, in front, or beside them. "Your staff is one of the key things a witchdoctor needs. You must make sure that it is with you at all times just in case there's an unexpected attack. "

Sestiva took out a small notepad out of her small bag and took careful notes. She wrote down almost every word Vadima had said, making it very easy to understand.

_Keep your staff with you at all times. Keep it with you at all times. You MUST keep it with you at all times. Sestiva, don't you forget it._

Sestiva repeated those words again and again, just to make sure that she didn't forget.

"What's your name?" Vadima asked, looking directly at Sesitva.

"Sestiva." Sestiva said, giving a simple straight answer.

"Now everyone look at Sestiva." Vadima said to the class. "See how she's taking careful notes? You all should do the same every now and then, to make sure that you don't forget anything."

Sestiva didn't not notice how fast time flew by when she was in the Witchdoctor's Sanctum. Class was already over, and she went to meet Helen at the life fountain.

"How was class?" Helen asked, scratching her head.

"Boring. We took notes and basically did nothing the entire time." Sestiva said in annoyance.

"Same here. We did nothing but introduction activities."

"Better than taking notes." Sestiva grumbled as the two sisters started walking home.

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**I hope that you enjoy the 100 word challenge series!**

**Until the next update,**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	2. Chapter 2

**2: Obsession**

"I'm going to do it, Helen." Sestiva said, voice lower than her usual one.

"Going to do what, Sestiva? You're confusing me." Helen asked, confused.

Sestiva smiled wickedly.

"Annihilate the Armada, of course!" Sestiva exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.

"Are you crazy?!" Helen half-screamed, raising her voice a little bit. "Not a single pirate for the past century has been able to take down the Armada! I'm talking about the best pirates too. They all, one day, tried to defeat Kane at Cadiz. There were no survivors. If you're going to do it…you're going to have to take me with you. You're going to need my help, no question about it. The Armada is too powerful for you alone to try and defeat Kane, and I sure don't want my little sister dead."

"Yeah, I'm crazy alright. If the best pirates in the spiral couldn't do it, then I'll be the first pirate who can defeat Kane without dying! Once Kane is gone, I'll destroy the rest, until every last one is dead."

"That's going to take years, Sestiva. You're not even considering the risks of annihilating the Armada."

"The risks? Come on, Helen, you can't be serious. When you're in battle, you don't have the time to consider the risks of every attack you do. You have to be quick in order for you not to be killed."

"You don't know what the Armada does to the pirates the capture, do you?"

"No, I don't. If they do try to do anything to me, I will fight back."

"They take away all your weapons and torture you, getting you to say what's kept secret in the resistance. You're chained to a wall, Sestiva. There's no way of fighting back."

"What does the Armada do to you then?"

"It's better if I don't say anything."

Sestiva laughed, and laughed, clutching her stomach as she did so.

"Do you really think that I would be stupid enough to go with you?" Sestiva asked, starting to calm down a little.

"Yes, you would, because you know that you need my help." Helen said, having no reaction.

"I'm going to do it! I'm going to do it! I'M GOING TO ANNIHILATE THE ARMADA ALONE, WITHOUT ANYONE'S HELP AND SURVIVE!"

Sestiva sprinted out of their small building on Skull Island and disappeared. Helen knew exactly where she was going. She was going to her practice cave, where she went every day after training. Helen bolted after her, the sand making it harder to run up the steep hill.

She found Sestiva mixing different potions.

Sestiva heard her enter, and shot a glare towards Helen as she looked up from what she was doing.

"There's no way you're stopping me from defeating the armada. I'm not taking you with me. I'm going alone. If I find out that you came in with me without me knowing, I'm going to personally stab you in the arm with your own bayonet." Sestiva growled as she finished mixing the two potions together.

Helen turned around and walked out of the cave.

"I know one thing. She's obsessed." Helen muttered, speaking softly so that only she could hear herself.

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**-Samantha Hawkins**


	3. Chapter 3

**3: Company**

Sestiva hung by her legs off her bed. She had nothing to do. She wasn't allowed to go on quests yet, and there were no new witchdoctor techniques to be practiced.

_Why can't I just leave this place. I'm being slowed down and held back. All because the stupid resistance has to make sure that EVERYBODY is "equal". They're the cause of the reason why we have so few pirates that can actually stand against the armada. They're forcing us to hide our true potential, and once EVERYBODY is ready, then they move on, not letting us show our skills to the whole spiral. I'm starting to think that Helen and I should move somewhere else, like Valencia, where it's close to Cadiz, as Helen calls it._

Sestiva thought long and hard about that Cadiz might be. She did say that pirates tried to go _into _Cadiz to try and bring down Kane, but still could not come up with a mental image.

_I have to tell her sometime. I'm starting to believe that Cadiz is some sort of Armada stronghold. If we just planned the right atta-_

_No._

_That's not a good idea. Kane's the leader of the Armada right? We can't possibly come up with an attack. First, we've never been inside Cadiz, so we might end up getting captured in the process of trying to Kane. Second, since Kane is the leader of the Armada, the area around him should be heavily guarded._

_I don't want to be here! I can't! Why do I have to be held back by idiots?!_

A knock sounded on Sestiva's bedroom door, startling her. She fell off the bed onto her back. She groaned, getting up to open the door.

It was Helen.

"I'm tired of this place." Sestiva said, raking her fingers through her hair.

"What do you mean, Sestiva?" Helen asked, rather confused.

"I want to leave Skull Island."

"But…why?"

"I want to see my full potential."

"The resistance will help you reach your full potential."

"Is that what you _really_ think? Do you _really _think that the resistance is trying to make us reach our full potential?"

"Yeah, that's what I think. That _is_ what I really think. You got a problem with that?"

"I have problems with the way you think. Don't you realize that some pirates, like me, want to want to reach their full potential earlier than others?"

"Yes, I do. The resistance has done everything for us…and now you want to leave?! Are you insane?!"

Sestiva said nothing afterword. She stormed off, going outside and slamming the door shut behind her.

_How can Helen still stay with the resistance's side? She's crazy! All I can say is that I'm going alone! She's not coming to drag me behind, I'm not letting her come, even if she pleads and begs me to. I'm leaving and not coming back. Maybe when the resistance realizes how many pirates were left behind and changes the way they do things is the only time I'm coming back._

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**-SamanthaHawkins**


	4. Chapter 4

**4: Dreams**

_I want to become the best musketeer in the spiral._

Helen wondered for hours how she could get the best training on Skull Island. As far as she knew, there wasn't any advanced musketeers on Skull Island. All of them were currently on missions, but they usually were, so Helen wasn't surprised.

She'd spend days trying to figure out how to become stronger, and often achieving nothing in the process.

_There should be better musketeers out there who are better than me. If they are still alive, that is._

All the powerful Pirates were sent to Cadiz a few weeks back. They haven't returned, so they were presumed dead.

Although Helen wasn't the greatest musketeer, she was considered to be among some of the greatest musketeers currently still living on Skull Island.

She knew Sestiva had much bigger dreams than her. Sestiva not only wanted to be the best in her class, but also to take down Cadiz single handedly.

Helen had been telling Sestiva that her dream was impossible. She would only be able to achieve half of it, which was being the best in the witchdoctor class. She told her that no one has ever come out of Cadiz alive, and Skull Island's been sending pirates to attack Skull Island for decades, but no ship sent there has ever returned. That the stories she heard said that all the ships sank endlessly, but the think there is a bottom to the spiral, and all the hundreds of thousands of ships that was sent there, are down there, broken to a million pieces.

Sestiva would say that anything is possible is you believed it was possible, but Helen would always refuse to believe such a thing was true.

_I should go train. I'm going to help Sestiva achieve her dream and at the same time achieve mine too. Sestiva should be up in her cave like she usually is training. I should give her some company and join her, there's no other place to practice without people complaining about gunfire. _

_It's hard to believe that Sestiva can take down Cadiz by herself, so I'll have to train as hard as I can too. _

Helen smiled, and started walking from the small building that she and Sestiva owned, to Sestiva's training cave on the top of the very steep hill. Of course, Sestiva was already there, casting spell after spell, tiring herself out.

"How long have you been up here?" Helen asked, making sure Sestiva didn't over exert herself.

"I've been…up here…since…morning." Sestiva panted, wiping the sweat off her face with her sleeve. "Want to…join…me?"

"Sure. I came up here to do so anyways. What have you been working on since morning?"

"Target practice. Just to increase my accuracy. I've tried running and casting to stimulate a moving target and I did pretty well, but when I stand still, It's not all that accurate."

"Show me."

Sestiva cast one of her many spells, the spell hitting wall to the left of the target.

"Your staff is too far out, bring it closer and keep your arm bent rather than extended."

"Thanks, Helen. Now we're both one step closer to reaching our dreams."

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**Enjoy the Superbowl!**

**-Samantha Hawkins**


	5. Chapter 5

**5: Pirate**

"Where are they?" asked the Commanding Officer.

"Not confirmed, but we can tell you now that finding them will be easy." Presidos Septimus said.

"One of the soldiers has informed me that a pirate has attacked one of the musketeers patrolling the first floor. I want you to find it, and kill this pirate. Otherwise we have a major threat. Send eight squadrons to search the rest of the fortress. Who knows it this pirates has brought _others_ with it."

Septimus turned and got the attention of eight Squadron Leaders, telling them to search the building for more pirates, while he got the one that attacked the patrol member on the first floor.

The Squadron Leaders turned to their squad members, gave them orders, and departed in search for others.

"You shall succeed, Septimus." Said the Commanding Officer.

"Affirmative, Commander." Said Septimus, saluting and heading down to the first floor.

He rounded a corner and went down the staircase, descending to the first floor.

He could hear screaming, the pirate's rushed feet as it tried to escape the attacks.

_Still no sign of more pirates. The squadrons are still searching. Usually they would've caught the pirates by now, but this one seems to be alone._

Septimus rounded a corner, and the pirate came into view. He analyzed the pirate carefully. The pirate was too busy thrashing around to notice him standing there watching.

As he got closer he realized it was more like _she_ was thrashing around in the musketeer's grip.

"Presidos Primus, hold her." Septimus ordered, approaching the female pirate, Primus pushing the girl to her knees and holding her by her hair. "Identify yourself, female pirate."

"I'm not telling you anything." She spat, looking up at Septimus with the an irritated glare.

"Resistance is futile, young pirate. Who did you bring with you? If you did, you did a good job hiding it."

The girl stayed silent.

"I already said that I'm not telling you Armada soldiers _anything."_

"Don't be so sure, pirate."

Septimus broke eye contact with the girl, glancing at Primus.

Primus brought her head into the wall, in return getting a grunt from the pain.

"Identify yourself now, pirate."

"In your dreams. Oh wait, you don't have dreams, do you? How unfortunate." The girl laughed before lashing out at Primus, grabbing him and attempting to flip him over.

"It's too late pirate, I know who you are. You pirates never learn. Why do you pirates bother carving you names onto your weapons, when it'll just get you identified?"

The girl didn't speak.

"Sestiva Zipman. What and interesting name. Primus, dispose of this girl immediately."

Primus threw the girl named Sestiva, into a nearby cell, closing and locking the heavy bronze door.

"Any reports of this pirate's friends?"

"Negative, Septimus. I'm afraid not."

Septimus and Prima turned their heads towards a heavy sound quickly approaching, but it wasn't a member of the squadrons. Another pirate.

"Primus, report this to Servus Carbo, I'll eliminate this threat."

Primus ran off, trying to get to Servus Carbo as fast as he could.

"Identify yourself." Septimus said, remaining calm.

"Helen Zipman. Don't you dare touch my sister." the pirate said, pulling out her gun.

"We have not harmed her in any way."

The taller pirate approached fast, taking her rifle from off her shoulder, but she stopped two feet before Septimus, a sympathetic look in her eyes.

The smallest hint of fear started to take over, but it did not show.

"I'm sorry." She said. "But I have to do this for my sister."

The girl called Helen fired the rife right into Septimus' shoulder. He fell to the ground twitching a little bit. She unlocked and opened Sestiva's cell and pulled her out.

"Why did you do that Helen?" Sestiva asked. "Why? Why did you have to do that to that musketeer? He didn't do anything to me!"

"I had to stun that musketeer to save you."

"His name was Septimus, Helen. Let's go. "

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**-SamanthaHawkins**


	6. Chapter 6

**6: Passions**

Sestiva poured two potions together, resulting in an explosion that happened too quickly for Sestiva to take cover for. She burned her arms, but if she hadn't shoved her hands in her pockets at the last minute, they would've been burned too.

She squinted through the heavy smoke that was clearing out through the cave entrance by the second, trying to clear some of the smoke in front of her with her hand. She stepped closer, slowly and cautiously, just in case the potion that had been created wouldn't combust and explode in her face again.

The smoke dissipated into the air and Sestiva could now make out the small shape of the liquid in the darkness, which shone a deep orange.

_What exactly is it? It's strange to have such a deep orange. Might as well take notes on what I made._

She pulled out her notebook and a ballpoint pen she used for class, and took careful notes on the potions. She described all the physical attributes of the potion, but there was only one question she didn't and couldn't answer yet.

_What_ does it _do_?

Burn?

Freeze?

Heal?

Explode?

It didn't look like it would do any of those. Not to Sestiva at least. It exploded in her face, but that was just from mixing potions and during her witchdoctor class, she was taught that when you mix potions, they sometimes explode.

_The only way I'm going to find out what it does is to test it. You're so stupid, Sestiva, you should have thought about that earlier than to forget what you learned about potion making in class!_

_I can test it on the wall._

Sestiva carefully slid the bottom of the potion bottle onto the palm of her hand and stepped over to the wall. There have always been sharp edges that have been bothering her, so why not take care of those?

She tilted the bottle and the potion spilled out over the small ledge. Steam started to rise from the orange substance, and watched as part of the wall start to disintegrate. It crumbled and fell off, the orange substance dissolving it to dust. It left no trace of it, but whatever it was kept eating away at the wall, starting to destroy it.

It worried Sestiva to think that it would eat through so much of the wall that the whole cave would cave in and collapse while she was still in it.

That was one of her greatest fears, having large structures collapse on her while she was still in them.

She threw water on it, washing it off the wall.

"Why are you so passionate about potion making when it's so dangerous and has so many risks?"

Helen would always ask Sestiva that one question, whenever she came home with cuts, bruises, and burns from potion making. Sestiva would always answer with the same thing every night.

"Because of the Armada. If making potions strong enough to defeat the armada is what I have to do, then that's what I will do, and do whatever it is with passion."

Helen would understand, and keep pleading her to show her the potions that Sestiva had made, but Sestiva always refused and Helen would never know why.

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**-SamanthaHawkins**


	7. Chapter 7

**7: The First Time**

Sestiva wasn't even close to being ready for what she and Helen were about to do. They were about to invade Cadiz and bring it down. Just like Sestiva has been planning for a long time now. Although, she didn't think that Pathogen would take effect fast enough for the Armada to be taken down.

She felt the wind that smelled of metal rip through her clothes, making her shiver on the spot, hoping that Cadiz had some sort of heating. She didn't expect the Armada to have a heating system because they constantly have to cool down as a result of the heat being made from the gears and processors.

_Let's get this done and over with. I didn't expect it to be this cold, but I'll just have to plow through this thing. And I thought that it would be nice out today. Stupid weather. It just has to change everything, doesn't it?_

Sestiva groaned getting up from her crunched up position against the mast, as an attempt to maintain her body heat.

Without knowing the ship had stopped she leaned over the handrail on the side of the ship, looking into the depths of the skyway.

"We're here, Sestiva." Helen said, motioning for her to climb off the ship. "We don't have all day. I don't want you to be the one ending up getting us caught, now if you would please stop looking into the never-ending depths of the spiral and get off this ship that'll be great and we can finally bring down the Armada."

"You don't have to beg me, we have plenty of time." Sestiva mumbled, jumping off the ship, using the handrail to push herself off the side and onto the dock. "We have all the time we want, we just can't be caught. If we are caught, remember to tell them you got lost and will turn back immediately. Unless you want to get yourself killed with some really stupid plan, go ahead and attack them. Go ahead and attack them if you _really_ need to."

"Come on, Sestiva, let's go." Helen said, pulling Sestiva's arm, and practically dragging her along.

The gates were open. It seemed like the Armada was awaiting shipments of gear and ammunition, so they walked right through the front gate, like it was nothing. Usually, hallway to the outside was heavily guarded, but there was not a single Armada soldier in sight.

"I've heard rumors that there's barely any security at the front gate when Kane's here." Helen said, looking around a corner, and back at Sestiva, who just put a wide grin on her face.

"That means, when Cadiz goes down, Kane goes down with it. The Captain goes down with the ship." Sestiva said softly, so no one else could hear it except for Helen.

"Clear."

Helen pulled Sestiva violently around the corner, jerking to a stop when she realized Sestiva's arm had forcefully been taken out of her grip. She turned around. Sestiva wasn't there.

"Sestiva where did you g-"

"Right…here."

"Sestiva, how come you're covered in gashes? What happened?"

"An Armada musketeer yanked me from your grip, but you didn't notice. It's been half-an-hour, Helen. I guess you were too lost in thought. Anyway I got into a fight with this soldier. He threatened to torture me until I revealed why I was here. I killed him, but I managed to get his name too. He said that he was Presidos Terrus. I was already around the corner looking for you when I heard it. He wasn't talking to me I know for sure. It was another Armada soldier, telling him to identify himself. When the other soldier walked away, I took the chance to stab him in the face and the stomach, ending him for sure. I stayed around for a few minutes to see if he was still alive. He was dead. I successfully killed my first Armada soldier."

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**-SamanthaHawkins**


	8. Chapter 8

**8: Opposites**

Sestiva and Helen were complete opposites.

Helen, in Sestiva's perspective, was extremely boring. Helen always had a bored expression plastered on her face, and very rarely would her facial expression change. She usually wore a dark blue color. Sestiva had also thought of her as uninterested.

It never seemed like Helen had cared about anything. It never showed on her face, but after living together for so long, it was easier to tell if she cared.

The thing that Sestiva had liked about her older sister was that she was very loyal. She would almost always speak the truth, unless she had to lie. Helen could be one of the nicest people, but when she's angry, she goes all out.

Sestiva on the other hand, was completely different. Sestiva was very energetic, and sometimes a little bit obnoxious. Sometimes she pointlessly annoyed Helen, and Helen would get extremely mad at Sestiva for being unproductive, and persuade her to go to her cave to train.

"You're so unproductive, Sestiva. Don't you want to take down the Armada by yourself?" Helen asked, taking a step towards Sestiva. "If you're going to do that, you should _want_ to be training every chance you get and not annoy anyone. Now go up to your cave and train, unless you want me up there with you."

"Oh, like that'll happen. The moment you walk into that cave, I'll attack you and make sure you don't come in ever again." Sestiva scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Unless you want something to explode in your face, which I'm sure you don't."

"You know that you won't attack me, to why do you keep denying the truth?"

"That's none of your business."

"It _is_ my business, Sestiva. "

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I think you want something to explode in your face. You aren't even interested in potion making so why do you even care?"

"It's because potion making has caught my interest lately and would like to help you create a potion that can bring down the armada, but in order for me to do that I have to start from the basics, and you've just started potion making so why not teach me?"

"Because it's dangerous, Helen. Witchdoctors are trained to withstand the heat of a potion and its explosion. Musketeers aren't trained to do any of that and can cause potion making to be more dangerous."

"Why do you have to be so irrational, Sestiva? Anyone can be taught how to withstand heat and explosions."

Sestiva didn't bother to close the door as she stomped out, being the one who's tend to resort to violence, left.

Helen on the other hand, remained calm, treating it like a normal occurrence. Fights between the two of them happened often, and most of the time, would break out into a fist fight, Sestiva being fueled by anger, and Helen fighting back for self defense.

_When will Sestiva ever learn? She's completely opposite of me, but I'm still her older sister and I can prove to her that she can teach me anything and in return, I'll teach her how to shoot guns._

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**This chapter was to include more of the details from one of the Pathogen chapters.**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	9. Chapter 9

**9: Growing Up**

"I want to defeat the armada, Helen!" Sestiva exclaimed, bright eyes widening with excitement.

"Grow up, Sestiva. You'd be dead in an instant, don't even think about trying. It's impossible. Haven't you heard the stories?" Helen scolded, trying to prevent Sestiva from acquiring that goal. She didn't want anything to happen to her sister.

Sestiva left the room, angry that Helen had believed this wasn't possible. Helen was the one that needed to grow up and believe that it was possible. They were only _stories_. The stories didn't prove anything. It just made everyone believe it wasn't possible.

Sestiva believed that those stories corrupted people's minds, persuading them that the Armada was invincible, that they could never be taken down, that pirates like her would die trying. She tried as hard as she could to persuade Helen not to believe those stories, but she did. It corrupted Helen's mind, and Helen would end up telling her not to follow her dreams and just try and become the best Witchdoctor in the spiral.

Sestiva would ignore her, and as she got older, Helen's thoughts began to change. She heard that pirates were starting to be sent to Cadiz on raid missions. No one ever came back. Her hatred toward the Armada grew, and started to support Sestiva's dream, making it part of her own as well.

Sestiva was shocked to see how much Helen supported her dream. She trained everyday with Helen, going through target after target.

Both of them trained relentlessly, exhausted by the time they finished. They would start training in the morning and end right before dinner.

They would always battle each other right before they finished training, to see how much stronger they got each passing day.

There was one day when Sestiva told Helen that she wanted to leave the resistance for good. Move away to Valencia, where they could be closer to the armada. Helen thought about it and told Sestiva it was a suicide mission. It would get them both killed, but Sestiva didn't even consider Helen's thoughts and forced her to get a ship and move out.

Helen did get the ship and moved out willingly, which surprised Sestiva a lot. Helen was one to care about leaving the place where she grew up, now saying goodbye to it. They still owned it, so they could always come back, but it wouldn't be the same.

Sestiva had grown up a lot mentally. She stood her ground without using violence to get what she wanted. She just stated her point strongly and makes those points valid.

Helen finally believed that since the both of them had trained so hard, they had a chance. They would go for days and weeks on ship, trying as hard as they could to make it to Valencia as fast as they could.

Time passed quickly on the ship, with all the nautical battles. The nautical battles took their minds off the day and didn't realize how much time had passed.

Both of them felt ready for what they thought was going to be an epic battle between them and the Armada.

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**-SamanthaHawkins**


	10. Chapter 10

**10: Drowning**

_Helen's off looking for Kane. I'm guessing it'll take a while, so I'm not going to wait for her. I'll go ahead and look for Kane using different route. It'll be faster that way._

Sestiva broke into a run, rounding several corners, while trying to keep out of sight. She continued running and turned sharply to the right, skidding on the brass floor, unable to regain balance. She fell, resulting in a loud noise that echoed off the walls alerting the Armada soldiers that were positioned near.

She could hear them approaching, getting closer by the second. Her eyes widened in terror as she could fell herself being pulled upward and a gun barrel bring pressed to her back.

"Walk, pirate." an Armada soldier ordered, pushing her forwards.

"What are you going to do to me?" Sestiva asked, voice quivering a little bit from fear. "Do you even have a name?"

"Presidos Modus, on my left is Presidos Prelatus, and on my right is Caesarus Aurus. Now walk."

Sestiva began walking and did as the soldiers said, winding up walking into a chamber.

"Modus what are you going to do to me? If you're going to interrogate me, don't do it. You're getting nothing out of me, it's useless."

"We're not going to interrogate you. We've learned from the past decades of Skull Islands pathetic raids. We only interrogated the first few raids of pirates. They revealed everything, then were sent out on a ship and the ship was fired upon and destroyed. Skull Island and the rest of the resistance soon found out what we were doing and sent out more pirates per raid."

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO ME?! I DEMAND AN ANSWER!"

The soldiers said nothing and pulled out a table from the side of the room. It took all three of them to life her onto it and strap her down onto it.

She struggled to avoid the restraints they put on her, but was held down firmly by Aurus.

"The lever. Now." Aurus ordered, Modus going over to a corner of the room and pushing the rather large lever down. The other soldiers stepped back as a glass, enforced with metal came up around the table, but it stopped a foot above her head and the top was left open.

A slot opened in the ceiling, a drop of water landed on her cheek. And then a waterfall of water came down from all four sides of the slot, filling up the space next to her and it soon came up and over her head. Her skin was raw and bleeding from constantly thrashing roughly to get free of the restraints. She held her breath as long as she could, but soon it started to feel like she was drowning. Her eyes opened underwater in fear and tried to look at the Armada soldiers on the other side of the glass. She wouldn't have enough oxygen for much longer, but caught a glimpse of Prelatus pulling the lever back up. The water drained and there was a sudden explosion that came from the doorway. The cloud of fire filled the whole room and the glass broke, water spilling everywhere but keeping her safe from the fire for a few seconds. She looked over to see Helen running into the room, and picking her up to carry her back to the ship.

They weren't leaving yet. She still had the bottle of Pathogen in her bag. While Helen carried her, she took out the bottle and threw it to the floor, and it shattered. Helen stopped and looked over her shoulder to see Pathogen seeping into the floor, the first thing that Pathogen always did and sprinted to the ship, sailing away as fast as they could.

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**Remember to leave a REVIEW!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	11. Chapter 11

**11: Rejection**

"Hey, Helen." Sestiva said, walking into the room. "Will you he-"

"No." Helen said, rudely interrupting.

"But I didn't eve-"

"I know, Sestiva. You don't need to ask again."

"Ask wh-"

"Don't play dumb! You know what? Go away and do something else. Just go away."

"What's with you today, Helen?! You're never like this!"

"I said, don't ask, Sestiva. Don't ask me to train with you ever again."

"Why not, Helen? What happened?"

"This is what happened."

Helen lifted up her arm, wrapped in bandages. She slowly unraveled it, revealing burns and blood on the other side.

"You knocked over a potion on your way out of your training cave. It shattered and some of the liquid got on my arm, and now it's useless for another day."

"I'm sorry."

"Just be more careful, Sestiva. Just be careful."

Sestiva went out the door, and quickly closed it behind her, careful not to slam it. Helen had never rejected her like that before.

_I really should learn to tell a person's mood by looking at them. Not by annoying them every second of the day. Helen told me I was annoying before, but I want it to change. Can I not be tolerated? Will I always be rejected like this? I don't know. I'll never know._

She scrambled up the hill and into the cave, only to find a mass of shattered potions. Glass all over the floor. She took a wet towel and wiped up all the glass. She had to be careful. The potions were already starting to take effect on the floor and the walls. Parts of the floor was dissolving where the potions were, and some parts of the floor were now lit up. Most of the potions were potions of healing so she wiped it up and threw the towel into the corner.

She heard something or someone behind her and turned around whipping out her staff. It was only Helen, but she attacked anyway, ending up with the blade like end pointing at her neck. Helen looked surprised by Sestiva's attack. Helen stepped back a few steps away from the blade.

"Sestiva, what are you doing? Are you _trying_ to kill me?" Helen asked, looking at Sestiva with wide eyes.

Sestiva glared back at her and shifted her spear a little, moving it away from Helen's neck.

She gave Helen a chance to breathe, before shifting it back to her neck.

"Sestiva. Listen to me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for knocking over your potions."

Sestiva moved her staff down, away from Helen and let it rest by her side.

"I knew it. I didn't knock over my potions. You did. I wouldn't have been so careless as to knock all my potions to the ground. That's why you have that burn. It's because you're the one who knocked them over. Never reject me like that again, Helen. Never to that again."

"I won't, Sestiva. I promise. I will never reject you like that again. I promise."

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**Please remember to REVIEW!**

**I really wanted to go and add in the details back on Skull island from from around chapters 1-10. Those were the chapters when I wasn't including much in them.**

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

**-Samantha Hawkins**


	12. Chapter 12

**12: Anger**

Sestiva threw her staff to the ground. She couldn't get one spell right. A new spell that she was learning on her own. She's been practicing it for weeks, but she's made no progress what so ever. She wanted to break the staff.

"I CAN'T DO THIS!"

_Why can't I get this right! I've made no progress at all for the last week! How come I was so good with learning the other spells, but I'm just so bad at learning this one. Why is this happening? You know what? You know what? I give up! I give up!_

Sestiva picked up her staff and stomped out of the cave sliding back down to where her small building she and Helen owned together. She burst through the door and ignored Helen putting a hand on her shoulder. She threw her staff across the room, walked back out of her home and back up to her practice cave.

She sat down in the middle of the floor, and concentrated on the book of spells that she had. She flipped through the pages. She flipped through the pages so hard she nearly ripped the pages right out of the book itself. She flipped to the spell that she was currently working on and ran as fast as she could to the building and get her staff. She quickly came back up and decided to try again.

She read through the steps over and over and preformed the spell countless times. There was one thing that was missing. The spell kept fizzling. It wouldn't work no matter how hard she tried. She probably was going to give up.

_Step 1,2,3,4,5,6, and 7 are the ones that I'm doing. I'm doing them all correctly I don't understand what's going wrong. Wait. If I'm missing something then…_

Sestiva moved her hand from the bottom page revealing the eighth step for the spell, which was to lunge forward with the bladed end of the staff pointed towards your enemy.

_That's what I was missing. I never thought that my hand was covering it when I read all the steps._

Sestiva attempted to execute the spell with the eighth step included in it. The spell worked. She cast it multiple times, the spell working each time. She finally got the spell she had been working on for so long. It was all because of something that she didn't see. If only she had noticed that earlier would she have gotten it more quickly.

She couldn't wait to tell Helen the exciting news and she couldn't wait to show Helen the spell she leaned. She burst through the door, Helen rushing over to see what was wrong since she thought that Sestiva was still mad.

"I got the spell!" Sestiva exclaimed. "The last step was always hidden under my hand when I read the book! That's why it never worked because I didn't have the last step!"

Sestiva preformed the spell flawlessly in front of Helen. She impressed Helen and Helen told her to go back to her practice cave and learn a new spell, but read the entire page and to make sure her hand wasn't covering any of the steps.

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**Please leave a REVIEW!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	13. Chapter 13

**13: Sea Glass**

Little fragments of metal and glass from Valencia got carried away into the wind, into the windlanes, passing from world to world. Some of them would get stuck in the cold mountains of Mooshu. Others would get stuck on the tops of buildings. Most would wind up on beaches, waiting for someone to come and pick them up or step on them. The fragments were a normal occurrence now. It has been five months since Cadiz went down and a new set of fragments would be on the beaches.

Little kids would come and collect them for fun, ditching the traditional sea shells, for the Armada's supposedly charge and scratch proof. It's what the former pirates thought at least. It was still vulnerable to charges and blades, although it would take an awfully long time to break through.

On the Skull Island beach, children were picking up pieces of glass. They would take them home and get them cleaned and store them somewhere after they collected them.

One piece, however, had gone unnoticed by the children. It had Pathogen's purple crystals growing all over it, almost making it look like a small purple ball. After days and weeks of being covered by sand, a former pirate was digging through the sand and found it, thinking it was an amethyst instead of glass.

He took it home, not noticing the crystals spreading into his skin. The piece of glass was stored away, but the crystals on the glass spread into everything it touched, and there were also bigger crystals growing in the sand since the glass was sitting there for so long.

The crystals growing on the pirate's hands had gone unnoticed too. No one saw it. Not even him. No one saw it because the crystals were growing inside of his skin, puncturing veins and blocking them, piercing through bones, but also held them together. The growth process was so slow that he didn't feel a thing.

He didn't notice a thing when it went straight through his ribs. He didn't feel it puncture his ribs while he was sleeping. He didn't notice the crystals growing out of his skin, but he did notice the blood on his arm. The crystals were so small that he couldn't see them, but more and more crystals ripped through his skin day by day, each day getting worse and worse.

One of those days, he was walking by the dock, and he just collapsed. No one knew why. No one knew what happened until they figured out he was dead. No one knew what caused it, and no one knew how it happened.

But the crystals from Pathogen spread to everything he touched which included furniture, his designated class headquarters, and other people.

What those people that he touched didn't know, was that they were now infected with Pathogen, and soon they will die, just like the young pirate did, and no one will figure out what had happened and how they died.

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**This chapter was basically an idea I had about what was going to happen in the sequel. Yes, there will be a sequel, and I shall be calling it "Pandemic". :)**

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and make sure to leave a REVIEW on it and tell me what you think about there being a sequel!**

**Until the next update,**

**-Samantha Hawkins**


	14. Chapter 14

**14: Dusk**

Sestiva hid among the trees watching for the Armada ships as they got closer to the island they were hiding on. Helen was on guard for Armada patrols on foot, hiding every now and then, Sestiva following from a distance.

They both remained silent. There was a chance that an Armada Soldier was behind the same tree, or somewhere near them and would find out they were there. They would be taken in by the Armada and end up being tortured, interrogated, and sometimes killed.

A sound of clanking filled the silence. Looking up, Sestiva saw a whole fleet of low flying Armada ships passing and circling the island over and over again. In complete fear of being seen and captured, before Helen could take another step, Sestiva, as quietly as she could, shoved Helen against the tree they were both closest to. Helen just gave Sestiva a confused look.

_Did she not hear the Armada ships? _

Sestiva pointed skywards, and Helen followed her finger up and looked past the leaves above her head to finally notice the fleet of Armada ships that were passing and circling the Island they were on.

However, the only part of the island that she ships currently sailing over was the part of the island they were on. It would get harder for the soldiers to see since it was already dusk.

The two of them made a run for it. If one of them fell, or tripped, or made any loud noises at all, they were done for. They made sure not to step on fallen branches and tried their hardest not to step on all the fallen leaves that were all over the ground.

They climbed over rocks, hills, crossed a river, and came to a stop on the other side of the island. Helen unbottled the ship, the ship making a loud creaking noise in response and they hopped aboard. Sestiva went below decks and raised the anchors and sailed away, trying to get away as fast as they could to make it look like they weren't even there.

They stopped when they pulled into a windlane. Pirates passing through was normal, so the Armada thought they were part of the normal flow of ships. The place where they left the island was now being guarded by the Armada's Vanguard squadron. If they had left any later, they would've been caught by the Armada for sure, and then taken into custody.

"Do they know that we escaped the stupid island?" Sestiva asked, leaning over the handrail to and shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand to see the island better.

"Possibly. It could be that they think that we're hiding in a cave or someplace on that island and they're waiting for us to come out. It's only natural they want to catch us. We _did_ take down Cadiz didn't we?" Helen explained, making a strong point. They _did_ take down Cadiz, and Sestiva did accomplish her dream to take down Cadiz.

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**Remember to leave a REVIEW. Here's some more of when Helen and Sestiva escaped an island near Cadiz when they were being chased by the Armada.**

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

**See you all next update!**

**-Samantha Hawkins**


	15. Chapter 15

**15: Fight or Flight**

Sestiva opened the door to the sparring arena. There wasn't anyone there. The sparring arena is usually full of pirates, waiting for a proper fight. The more advanced pirates were crowded against the wooden walls of the room, talking about their plans for invading Cadiz. Their heavy armor looked like it could sustain a charge blast, but Sestiva knew that the Armada was so advanced in weaponry, that the armor that they thought would protect them from a charge blast, might give them little protection.

She walked right past them, looking for a pirate whose skill level is closer to hers. Most of them were better than her, but it was rare to see this many advanced pirates in the same sparring arena.

Sestiva knew one thing, if there were this many good pirates in one place, than something important must have come up. Usually it's the next raid against the armada. They thought it was going to be easy, but they didn't know about the countless raids' defeat.

Sestiva pushed her thoughts aside and continued searching. She looked down while she walked and bumped into someone. They both stumbled backwards, and both looked up, almost synchronized. They stood up.

"Hello. I'm Sestiva!" Sestiva introduced herself. "Sorry for running into you!"

"I'm Devin! Nice to meet you." The other girl said, shaking hands with Sestiva.

"Do you want to fight with me? Or are you going to find someone else to battle with?"

"I can battle you, unless you're _scared_. I don't like cowards. They get in the way."

"Well guess what, I don't like them either. Let's get this over with, shall we?"

"If you say so. I'm going to beat you."

Sestiva didn't respond and instead made use of the reasonably large amount of space to get into her battle stance. The better pirates filtered out of the arena and went to the Tavern, where they further discussed their plans for invading Cadiz.

Sestiva and Devin were left alone with a large amount of space to fight.

"So what kind of pirate are you?" Devin asked, drawing her blades from her side. "I'm a swashbuckler, and every battle I've fought, I've won."

"Witchdoctor. I've dealt with swashbucklers before. They're so annoying." Sestiva responded, starting her first attack.

She cast a new spell she had been working on in the small swashbuckler's direction. She was hit, but barely inflicted any damage. She stumbled backward.

"That was weak, Sestiva. A pirate your level should know better, more powerful spells than _that_."

"Just wait, Devin. It does little damage, but because it emits a poisonous gas that doesn't harm the user, you breathed it in, and it will slowly drain your energy and make you useless."

Devin charged at Sestiva, knifes ready for throwing. Sestiva responded to the attack by casting multiple Soulreavers. Devin carefully dodged the attacks, but Sestiva had a blade of her own. She blocked most of Devin's attacks, the ones that she missed were only shallow cuts, but the blood that escaped them, continued to trail down her arm.

Devin had not observed Sestiva's staff carefully enough before the battle began, and if she did study the staff carefully, she would've noticed the bladed end.

Sestiva caught Devin off guard and threw her to the ground, and put the blade to her throat.

"I win."

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**So more dueling with Sestiva. :D I do hope you enjoyed this chapter and leave a review!**

**Until the next update,**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	16. Chapter 16

**16: Skeletons in the closet**

Sestiva's intentions were always very clear.

Destroy the armada.

That's what she told everyone she knew. She wanted the armada gone, and with a burning passion to do so.

Helen, however, had her doubts. From the past years, she had slowly figured out that although Sestiva's intentions were clear, she could tell that from the way that Sestiva says it, there was a secret behind it all. One that she wasn't willing to tell anyone. Not even Helen, her older sister, the one that she trusted the most.

Helen paced back and forth, trying to pinpoint what exactly the secret was about. She just didn't get it. What could possibly be a secret behind wanting to annihilate the Armada? There could be many secrets.

_Wanting to defeat the Armada alone?_

_No. She already says that._

_Sneak into Cadiz undetected and at the same time mysteriously disappearing from Skull Island?_

_No. Too cliché. It's been attempted many times and I doubt that she'll be stupid enough to try._

_Not wanting to kill the Armada soldiers themselves?_

_No. That can't possibly be correct. You can't bring down the Armada without bringing down its soldiers with it. Although, it is a possibility, with Sestiva showing that much hatred towards the Armada, it's probably not the secret._

Helen denied all the possibilities. From how she watched Sestiva train, and listen to her talk about the Armada, there was no way she could possibly believe it. There couldn't be a secret behind it. There just couldn't be.

But…

She didn't know how wrong she was.

Sestiva stood alone in the dark practice cave, staring at the Armada soldier that she found disarmed, hiding in a gap in the side of the steep incline that led to the cave. She stayed at a distance, waiting for the soldier to attack. She waited for him to unsheathe a knife she didn't know about in any moment.

The moment never came.

She narrowed her eyes at the soldier. With every step she took to approach the soldier, he backed up a little bit. It came to a point when his back was against the cave wall, frantically looking around for an escape route. She took a knife off of the table she always had near the center of the cave.

_I'll kill him. Even if he's harmless right now, he could still escape and tell any other Armada soldiers that might be hiding on Skull Island._

Sestiva hid the blade behind her wrist, her hand curled back to support the blade handle. She approached faster and faster until she was running at him in a full on sprint. She seemed to notice that the soldier himself didn't even notice the hidden knife. She flipped the knife into her hand and aimed at his neck. She planned to kill him, but ended up stopping the edge of the blade just millimeters before his neck.

_I can't do it. I can't kill this Armada soldier. I just can't._

She grabbed the soldiers wrist and pulled him to the back room, where the potions were. The pulled aside the potions shelf and opened a door, that looked like a part of the wall.

"Hide in here. Don't come out, but I'll be coming in everyday. "Sestiva told the Armada soldier.

The Armada soldier didn't react to what she said. He just stood there, but Sestiva took it as a "yes".

Sestiva smiled before exiting the small chamber, leaving the soldier alone in the dark, waiting for her to come back.

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**So I tried to add a little more of Helen's thoughts. Please tell me how this chapter was by leaving a REVIEW! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	17. Chapter 17

**17: Six Feet Under**

"Where am I going to put this?!" Sestiva asked herself angrily, holding onto the limp Armada soldier's frame. "There's no where to put this without it being seen too quickly. If Helen finds out, she'll kill me for sure."

Sestiva continued to search for a spot to hide the light frame. The barely fifty pound body was swung gently over her shoulder and went down took another turn, only to find that there was nowhere to hide it.

There was nowhere to hide it in her cave. She dragged the frame outside and squinted into the harsh light emitting from the sun. She could put the frame under the waterfall, but it had a risk of rusting and being worn down to nothing. There was no tree that was big enough to hide the frame in its branches, the leaves concealing it from view. There was no area on Skull Island with a condensed area of trees.

_Isn't there anything I can do to hide this stupid frame?!_

There wasn't anywhere that Sestiva could think of, but she _had_ to think of _something_. Helen normally would always stop by her cave at sunset and tell her to come eat dinner. She only had a couple hours. Three hours at the max. She looked up at the sun and back down at Skull Island.

She started to break into a sprint, skidding to a stop when she suddenly realized…she could _use_ the _sand_. The _tons_ of sand that was all over Skull Island itself. She dropped the frame where it was and went back into her cave to fetch a shovel. There was no way she would dig very far down with only her bare hands.

She immediately started digging a few feet from the cave. By now she had dug two feet down and she had two hours left to go. Not to mention she had to cover the hole back up with all the sand she dug up.

She began to dig faster and faster getting closer to four, then five feet deep. She stopped when she reached six feet under the level ground, panting.

She carefully scrambled out of the six foot long hole and dropped the Armada frame in it, then going in and straightening out the frame.

She sand above ground soon started disappearing. Swing after swing of her shovel, she filled up the hole, and leveled it out, disguising the area to be as normal as the others. The excess sand was flung off the edge. She put the shovel back and went back outside. She looked down to see Helen climbing the hill and was almost a quarter of the way up.

"I'll spare her the trouble of coming _all_ the way up here." Sestiva said to herself, taking extra precautions so that Helen wouldn't find out, even if the frame was six feet underground. Sestiva slid down the hill, easily catching up to Helen. "Is dinner ready?"

"Yes it is." Helen said, gesturing to the house. "Right this way."

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**I'm going to start making chapters dedicated to Helen soon. I hope you enjoyed it and make sure to leave a REVIEW!**

**See you next update,**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	18. Chapter 18

**18: Tourist**

"Hey, Helen!" Sestiva called while running up the stairs to the ship's wheel. "Do you think we should go back and visit Valencia?"

"We haven't been there in a while, so I guess we could." Helen replied, turning the ship to the west into Valencia's stormgate.

There were no more threats in Valencia. Not since Sestiva and Helen either destroyed or drove off the ships and took down Cadiz. Granchia was being rebuilt and the students at Sivella Academy returned to their studies. The deserted Armada bases were taken over by the Valencian army, which was made up of the fencers that wanted to procect Valencia from _any_ potential threats.

Where Cadiz used to be was a new city that the Valencians were building in order to make up for the giant empty space that was left there after it went down. Frequent traders would come back and forth with goods and supplies to help Valencia since it was on an extreme shortage of resources. The Armada took most of their resources away when building Cadiz and other bases scattered around it.

Valencia didn't change much besides the big city they were building. They docked at their old island and Sestiva hopped off. She waited for Helen to catch up and then kept walking. She was going to visit her cave, where she created Pathogen.

She remembered that that was also where she tested Pathogen on two Armada soldiers and regretted it. Especially after destroying Cadiz.

She went down the narrow stairs and into the blackness. She quickly cast a spell to light up the cave. She could see everything now. The tables in the middle of the room just like the one on Skull Island. The many targets that she had etched onto the walls with stone with scorch marks on them. A bit farther down she could see the tunnel leading to the back.

Sestiva walked towards the tunnel, stopping when she recognized something from the corner of her eye. She turned her head towards it, and went closer. It was the two Armada soldiers she had experimented on with Pathogen. Their limp frames still containing the tiny purple crystal fragments, which had now started growing at an extremely slow pace. She turned towards Helen with pure horror in her eyes. She couldn't possibly believe she could have done this.

She couldn't believe that she would do something this horrible. Torturing them with Pathogen.

She believed that the pain that Pathogen inflicted upon the victim was so great that their hearts would explode, but the longer she waited before it was used, it would become slower and a lot less painful, making it easy to not be noticed.

"Helen. Let's go home. I'm done here." Sestiva said, sadness filling her voice.

"Why, Sestiva?" Helen asked. "We got here two hours ago."

"That's enough time, Helen. We should leave."

"Alright, let's go get the ship ready."

The two of them began to walk back to their ship. Sestiva was internally happy for being able to visit the place again. She has happy to see that Valencia had changed a lot ever since they left.

It seemed that Valencia was blossoming with traders, markets and all sorts of tourists. They were going to be one of them.

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**So this is after they took down Cadiz and some other Armada fortresses. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and make sure to leave a REVIEW!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	19. Chapter 19

**19: Eternity**

How long did she have to wait for the Armada to disappear?

How long did she have to wait to go fight the Armada on her own?

Sestiva was tired of waiting. She hated it. Absolutely hated it. She groaned, standing up from her crouched position against the mast. She was going to sneak out the previous night, steal a ship and sail away to Cadiz and vanquish the Armada on her own, without anyone's help. Including help from her sister, Helen. But of course, Helen being a light sleeper, caught her trying to sneak out of their small building, and made her go back to sleep.

Helen had insisted on helping her. Sestiva had refused all help, but Helen still insisted on at least buying a ship for her to sail to Cadiz and where ever else she was going. Sestiva let her buy the ship at least, but she was also planning to sail off without Helen. Leaving her behind on the docks. She was only going to do this because Helen was going to force her to bring her along, which was also the last thing she wanted to happen. Helen would be worrying about her every three seconds, asking if she was okay, even if she was just practicing her spells. Of course, there were things that could happen while she was practicing, like a deflected spell that could possibly come back and hit her. Potions could explode in her face, and result in severe burns.

"Sestiva, let me on this ship. Right. Now." Helen demanded, glaring at Sestiva, who had pulled up the gangplank so that she couldn't come aboard. "You _will_ need my help, I'm sure of it."

"You're so annoying, Helen." Sestiva scowled, glancing back at the other ships leaving behind her. "You worry about me every three seconds and you think I'm not old enough to make decisions on my own."

"Sestiva, you're just being immature. Little kids like you don't always get what they want and when they don't, they complain about it, which in fact is exactly what you're doing right now."

"I'm aware of what I'm doing, Helen. Trust me on this. It's not that I'm being immature. I'm doing this because you never _gave_ me the chance. If you would have just left me alone and check back on me at the end of the day, that would've been fine, but _you_ decided to annoy me by coming every ten minutes."

The tension between the two of them grew, even after Helen had forcibly come upon the ship. It was going well, but the happiness that seemed to be fake, was all a game. After Cadiz had gone down, it was all going downhill. Sestiva had gotten so fed up with Helen, that she had abandoned her and sabotaged her and her plans.

They started to grow distant from each other. They ate at separate times instead of together as they usually did. Sestiva moved to a cabin that was far away from Helen's. They hardly talked to each other. Usually it was Helen who broke the silence between the two of them.

"Are you going to be like that forever? For eternity?" Helen asked, placing a hand on Sestiva's shoulder.

"Maybe, depends how annoying you are by the time this Armada fortress goes down. I really don't think it'll be like this in a few days. We would appreciate each other again. I don't want to be like this anymore." Sestiva said.

"Then let's do it." Helen said, lighting a fuse and watching it light explosives, blowing up the small fortress on a big island and for the first time in a while…they smiled at each other, impressed by each other's work of destruction.

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**Yay! More Armada stories! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and be sure to leave a review. Advice and criticism are greatly appreciated.**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	20. Chapter 20

**20: Vanishing**

It was like the opportunity vanished right before her eyes. She was lurking around the fifth floor of Cadiz, trying to find her way to Kane. He was on one of the higher floors. She could tell. The masses of Armada soldiers grew the farther she went up. Sestiva had told her she was going to take down the Armada musketeer on the first floor, and she was capable of it. It was just _one_ soldier. She would do fine on her own. Or so she thought.

A scream erupted from the first floor. Helen wedged herself in a narrow space, just giving her a slight bit of breathing room. The Armada soldiers took a quick glance at the stairwell, but went back to their own thing, as if nothing even happened. She snuck out from around the corner and inched herself along to the stairwell. She threw herself down the stairwell, not caring if she made noise. The noise that she made was loud, but the solid brass floor absorbed most of the impact.

Sestiva on the other hand, struggled to get out of the Armada musketeer's thin hands, but he was faster than her. No matter what she did, the musketeer shifted his position so that she couldn't break free of his hold on her. He threw her into an open cell, and slammed the door shut with a considerable amount of strength.

Sestiva threw herself against the bars, trying to open the cell door. All her effort was futile. The door didn't move an inch and neither did the musketeer.

Sestiva could hear someone coming down the nearby stairwell, but even in the farthest corner of the cell, she couldn't see around the corner.

_It's reinforcements I bet. They're coming to torture me. Might as well just die here._

Sestiva pushed the thoughts aside. There was still a chance that whoever was coming down the staircase could be Helen, but it wasn't likely. There was only one Helen, but there were thousands of soldiers in Cadiz. She ran a hand through her hair, and let it drop to her side, feeling the bottle of Pathogen she snuck in.

The soldier started advancing toward her, rifle not drawn. Not yet. Sestiva wasn't a potential threat. _Yet._

"What do you want from me?" Sestiva hissed.

"Calm down, I promise that n-"the musketeer was cut off by Sestiva bringing down the bottle of Pathogen onto his head. Sestiva's hand quickly pulled back and backed up into the farthermost point in her cell, making sure that none of Pathogen's particles could get to her.

The soldier just seemed—surprised. He twitched and fell over, his hands trying to get the purple substance off of his body.

Sestiva locked eyes with the soldier, even though the soldier didn't exactly _have _eyes. Another soldier was thrown on top of the one Sestiva had just infected, and a figure emerged from the corner.

Helen.

She had finally come for her.

She unlocked the cage, and let Sestiva out. While walking back out to the docks, Sestiva took her bag and staff back, and threw all the remaining bottles of Pathogen from the bag, onto the ground. Cadiz would be going down for sure now.

* * *

**Finally some Armada-ish action! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and make sure you leave a review!**

**Until the next update,**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	21. Chapter 21

**21: Creative Visualization**

Helen wasn't ready for the battle at Cadiz. Although she was prepared for it,…she was terrified. She had endless thoughts about what could happen during the attack.

What if her and Sestiva got captured?

_If_ they were captured.

What would the Armada do if they _did_ capture them?

But there was one question that had stuck out in her mind.

_Why _isn't _Sestiva_ afraid?

She wasn't even close to being terrified. She looked very calm, but she very well could be nervous too.

Sestiva was pacing back and forth on the deck, waiting for Helen to come down from the ships wheel. They had just recently docked at Cadiz going unnoticed.

She spotted Helen coming down the stairs, rifle loaded and ready. They jumped off the ship instead of using the gangplanks so the Armada won't be able to reach up and bring the gangplanks down. They landed softly with two soft thuds, one right after another.

The dock was small, but there were docks all around Cadiz on every side. They went to opposite sides of the dock, walking down to the entrance.

They tried to be as quiet as they possibly could. The only noise was Sestiva's leather bag softly hitting her waist as she walked down to the end of the hallway, where it branched off into three different directions.

The hallway directly in front of them was clearly empty. They both looked into the brass hallways on their respective sides. There was nothing on Helen's side, but there was _one_ soldier on Sestiva's.

"One musketeer on my side. You go ahead and see what's on the next floor if you can find the stairs. I got this taken care of." Sestiva whispered, and Helen went on her way, but tried not to be seen by the musketeer that was now behind her.

_It's just one. Just one. There's no signs of more of them as far as I can tell. Can I actually do this?_

Sestiva's nervousness was starting to take over and she quickly tried to think of a plan.

_I can do this. If I just wait until he's turned around, then I can charge in and ram my staff through his back._

Just as she finished thinking, the soldier turned around, but only for a second. It was already too late for Sestiva to realize that it he turned back around. He dodged the staff. Sestiva, surprised by the dodge, turned back around, and threw the staff at the soldier. The soldier fell to the floor, Sestiva standing up to see the staff impaling his leg. She pulled it out, and slammed it down onto his neck. She had that taken care of. She started down the hallway, towards the stairway at the end. She took a look back at the soldier now lying motionless on the floor and dragged him under a shadowed part of the staircase.

She had done it. She had killed her very first Armada soldier with one of her very own weapons.

* * *

**More action in Cadiz! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and make sure to leave a review! Also, happy April Fools Day. Troll ALL the friends!**

**Until the next update,**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	22. Chapter 22

22: New Growth

A crowd had started to form on the beaches of Skull Island. Fragments of purple crystals had begun to grow there. The fragments of crystal had been transported to Skull Island through the air along with the wind, and some had been flung out of the windlanes. It was an unknown element that no one had heard about.

There was a man covered in them. He was screaming in pain. The purple crystals were rapidly coming out of his skin, and the once purple crystals were now drenched in the man's blood, turning it red. The crowd just watched in complete horror. The biggest crystal was protruding out of his back. The crystal was heavy, and the man couldn't stand up. He was lying on his back, with a even bigger crystal starting to protrude from his chest, right above the crystal on his back, making him seem impaled at first glance, but neither of the two crystals were touching each other. The crystal that had just formed ripped right through both of his lungs, and he flailed around for a moment and dropped dead in the sand.

"Let's get inside, Isabel. This is too terrifying to watch. Especially for someone your age." A mother said, ushering her daughter, Isabel inside. Isabel was eight years old, and she just saw something that would haunt her for a long time.

"B-but mommy there's a dead man we have to help!" Isabel exclaimed, trying to pull away from her mother's grasp.

"Don't you know that you can't bring a dead person back to life?! Dead is dead, we can't help him anymore. It'll be impossible to bring that man back to life." Her mother scolded, almost dragging Isabel inside.

Tears began to cascade town Isabel's face. She pleaded her mom to let her back outside.

"Please, mother I want to help. Please. I'll do anything." Isabel cried, her mother still holding onto her wrist.

"_You_, young lady, will stay here, and you _won't _move until I give you the "okay" to do so. Understand? We'll be going outside again, but trust me when I say not to touch the purple crystals. It might just spread to you to. I _don't_ want a _dead_ daughter. Not _ever._"

"I understand, mommy."

"Good. Now stay here while I go check things out first."

Isabel's mother left the house, closing the door behind her. Isabel ran to the window to watch her mom. It seemed to her that she was just checking the sand. That was all, but it was more than just that. She was looking at the body. Soon she looked through the window, and signaled her to come.

Isabel happily burst out the door, running over.

"Why were you looking at the sand?" Isabel asked, confused.

"I was making sure that there weren't any pesky little purple crystals around." Her mom replied, pushing her way back through the crowd to get back to their house.

"We're not going outside for a while, Isabel." Isabel's mom said.


	23. Chapter 23

**23: Flash Flood**

"Presidos Septimus there are unknown…things…growing on the ground floor. We need to see to it immediately." Custos Limus reported. There were two squadrons running up behind him and their weapons weren't with them. "These two squadrons were stationed down there, but whatever the _thing_ was broke their bayonets. They left their rifles to get new ones. By the time they got back there was a thick wall of the _thing_ and it blocked them from their weapons."

"I'll see to it. All of you come with me. I need you all to describe the _thing_ to me while we're walking there." Septimus said, leading them down the hallway.

"It was…crystal like, it was a shade of…purple…and it grew at rapid speeds, some of them grew slower than others." Militus Terrus described, taking short pauses to think about what both squadrons saw at that moment.

They came to a halt and Septimus stepped forward, thoroughly observing the purple crystal Terrus described.

"It matches your description, Terrus. " Septimus said, turning around to face another member of the two squadrons. "Optimus Modus, tell the patrol on the second floor to close the doors to the first. We don't want to take any chances of this getting all the way up to Kane on the top floor."

"Affirmative, Septimus." Modus said, and went up the stairs to tell the patrols to close the doors.

"Commander Septimus, I think there was one soldier who stayed behind to watch out weapons for us." Seraphus Strictus said, pointing towards the wall.

"Identify him." Septimus ordered, turning towards the wall with the soldier trapped on the other side, not able to see what the crystal's doing to him.

"Militus Vicus, commander."

Vicus was struggling on the other side. He pounded on the crystal wall over and over, but his attempts to break the wall, or even crack it, were futile. Nothing worked. Not even his pole axe that had just recently been sharpened, which was now dulled. If he _could_ get help, he _would_, but he couldn't. He already tried to and failed. No matter how many times he called his squad member's names, they couldn't hear him.

He felt the temperature suddenly drop. Was there a storm coming? No. He rolled up his sleeve. To his horror, he found giant holes in his frame, turning his arm over to look at the other side, purple chunks fell out of the holes.

The crystals grew rapidly from his frame, covering the area of his mask that was under his eyes, and trailed down to his cheeks. His uniform ripped at the back, two lines of crystals on either side of his back.

A crystal lodged itself into one of his gears and now he could hear faint clicks from the slowing gears. His only other option for escape was through the docks and to go around to a different entrance. His time was short. He only had minutes before he would die on Cadiz's docks and the whole Armada would go down with him. Everyone only had a little bit of time. The crystals, even though they had just closed the door an hour ago, had broken through, and it was only a matter of time before Cadiz went down too.

All the way to the bottom of the spiral.

* * *

**I decided to write some more action on the side of the Armada. This is after Sestiva and Helen escaped Cadiz just before it went down. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and make sure to leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	24. Chapter 24

**24: Stars**

It was finally peaceful during Sestiva and Helen's trip to Valencia. The wind rushed through Sestiva's hair as she stared in between the two wind lanes. Small jellyfish were bobbing and broken fragments of wood from ships floated around aimlessly. Silence was the only thing Sestiva wanted at the moment, but that silence was disturbed by occasional creaks of the ship.

She looked up at the empty space above her. There were stars. Lots of stars that gleamed in the darkness. She never would've thought that it would be this beautiful in between worlds. She wondered if the spiral ever stopped discovering new worlds, which to her was impossible, because the spiral was bigger than everyone _thought_ it was.

"What are you thinking about, Sestiva?" Helen asked her leaning on the side rails next to Sestiva.

"Nothing much. I was just wondering how big the spiral really was." Sestiva said with wonder, gazing deeper into the sky.

"Thinking about the Armada again?"

"N—well maybe. I guess I still want to know where they're stationed. They could very well be all over the spiral hundreds of thousands of miles away."

"I knew you were Sestiva. That's just you."

"Are you sure, Helen?"

Helen didn't respond. She just looked up, taking her sparquebus off her shoulder. She shot a charge into the sky, wondering how far it could go up.

The charge just kept going and going, until the light from the electricity disappeared into the infinite darkness.

Helen went down to her cabin and Sestiva did the same. It was relaxing, laying down on her bed in silence. Helen stared up at the ceiling, counting the passing time. She wanted the trip to be over.

Sestiva on the other hand, had dozed off, and was sleeping peacefully, but was awoken to a loud rumbling noise. They had reached the stormgate. Sestiva went to Helen's cabin to tell her that they reached the stormgate, but when she opened the door, it was empty. She must have known how long it was going to take or she didn't fall asleep like Sestiva did.

Sestiva went up onto the main deck, and saw Helen waiting for her.

"Took you long enough, Sestiva." Helen said, unaware that Sestiva fell asleep.

"Helen, I fell asleep. You should've realized that by now." Sestiva hissed, glaring at Helen.

"Exactly how was I supposed to know?! I didn't go into _your_ cabin like you did mine."

"H—How did you know?!"

"Knowing you, you would've checked to see if I was in my cabin anyway so you can tell me information that I already knew."

Sestiva scoffed and looked back up at the sky.

"How much longer do we have until we get to Valencia?" Sestiva asked harshly.

"I don't know. " Helen said plainly.

"Helen, can I at least have an estimate?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I've never traveled to Valencia before."

"Just…give me…an estimate."

"I'll just say that it would take us around five more hours to get there."

"Ugh, why does this have to take so long?!"

"Ask the spiral that, Sestiva."

Sestiva gazed into the sky once again, staring deep in wonder.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and be sure to leave a review!**

**Until the next update,**

**-SamanthaHakwins**


	25. Chapter 25

**25: Where No Man Has Gone Before**

"Why _can't_ we go?!" Sestiva half-yelled, throwing her hands to her side in frustration. "You _never_ let me go anywhere! Yet _you _get to go _where ever_ you want."

"Sestiva. You _can't_ go anywhere because you're so_ immature_. All you'll do is _embarrass me." _Helen snapped, pushing Sestiva against a wall to move her out of her current path.

Sestiva groaned and pushed Helen back before sprinting out the door, looking over shoulder and yelling.

"There's no _human_ at _Cadiz,_ Helen!" Sestiva shouted, before blocking Helen out of her thoughts.

Sestiva stormed off to the dockmaster, where she was going to get her very own ship. She wanted to go alone. _Without_ restraints from Helen.

_She's so annoying. Why can't she just go away? She doesn't leave me alone. She's only two years older than me. Can't I make my own decisions?_

The sand, kicked and turned over, picked up in the wind. Some of the sand got into Sestiva's eyes. She ignored it and pressed on towards the docks. The wood creaked under her feet as she stepped down the stairs to the docks. Temptation of sailing out on her own taking over her mind.

She could now see the faint figure of the dockmaster in the distance, standing on the far side of the dock. She approached, preparing what she had to ask.

"Excuse me, but what is the price of a small skiff?" Sestiva asked, hoping that she came across kind, and optimistic.

"Just 9,000 gold pieces, young lady. It's not _that_ much." The dockmaster laughed. "The good thing is we're having a sale today. So the ship will be around 2,000 gold pieces."

"I'll be back."

Sestiva ran off back to her small home and opened the door as quietly as she could. Helen could hear the wind blowing in and found Sestiva at the front door, shutting it behind her. She waited for Sestiva to turn around to realize that she was standing right in front of her. Sestiva, turning around, walked right past Helen, as if she couldn't see her at all. Helen, annoyed by the response, grabbed Sestiva by her long hair and held her back.

Sestiva pulled her long hair out of her grip, and continued past, climbing the stairs to their rooms. In the corner of Sestiva's room was a chest, containing around 5,000 gold pieces. She grabbed one handle and dragged it down the stairs, the chest thumping along as it hit each and every stair.

Helen looked at Sestiva in wonder. She didn't know what Sestiva was going to do with all that money. She followed behind her, but only from a certain distance. She absolutely _had _to know what Sestiva was going to do with all of it.

Helen saw Sestiva disappear to the docks. She continued to follow her. Coming to a sudden stop, her gaze drifted to a new ship that appeared in the docks. She broke into a run, finding Sestiva standing next to the dockmaster.

"What do you think you're doing? Where are you going?!" Helen scolded, grabbing Sestiva's wrist and pulling her towards her.

"Buying a ship. Isn't it obvious? I'm going to Valencia to do the impossible. I'm going to go where no man has gone before. I'm going to go to the top floor of Cadiz, where I'll kill kane and bring back his mask for the whole Spiral to see." Sestiva explained, not showing any kind of reaction to Helen's sudden actions.

"I'm going with you." Helen replied, slowly releasing her grip on Sestiva's wrist. "You'll _need _me."

* * *

**Here we have something before they embark on a journey to Valencia. **

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	26. Chapter 26

**26: Innocent**

It looked innocent. Purple potions sat on a shelf within a cave on Skull Island. It had been left there for almost a year now, and the glass for the potion bottles were wearing thin from the acidic potion. No one _ever_ entered the cave. No one knew what was in it. They were cowardly. They didn't know what was inside, so they just decided not to ever enter. They didn't know that the potions inside the cave could destroy the island and kill everyone.

They were oblivious to the fact that in a matter of time, they would all die, without knowing how they died or when they would die. Some of the potions had seeped out of the cracks in the glass, after the potions had worn out the glass.

It dripped onto the floor, the floor soaking it right up. If someone would see it, it would look like the potion was dissolving into the floor, but since no one ever came, it would continue to drip and contaminate. One would not understand that their death would come sooner than expected and lived in fear instead. Fear of leaving Skull Island for good. Just like a Witchdoctor and Musketeer did a year ago. They left. Not to live in fear, but to vanquish the Armada. They stayed in Valencia. They never left.

The problem was that they too didn't know what was going to happen upon Skull Island. They planned on taking a visit back to Skull Island, but canceled the trip due to some problems with the Armada down in Marleybone.

People on Skull Island thought that it couldn't be touched. That Skull Island was always going to be safe, but they were wrong. Dead wrong.

The cave had now been blocked off. Blocked off by a purple wall of crystal. People who had passed by the cave had noticed and reported what they saw. They were told that it was just a natural growing crystal and they should just ignore it. They listened and they did ignore the crystal that seemed to be growing ever so slightly each passing day. Soon it got to be so big that it punctured the roof of the cave, tearing a massive hole in the top, sunlight now pouring down into the once dark cave.

The crystals stretched far beyond the cave. It went beyond the hill the cave was on and people had just begun to panic. They moved onto the Skull Island Mountain. They lived and bonded with the creatures that lurked there. They disconnected the bridge between the main island and the mountain.

The crystal became relentless and grew at faster rates with the more mass it had. It had taken over all of Skull Island. It grew down the sides and stretched far out into the open skyway. Ships would crash into it and sink every now and then, but the mountain was still safe. It stretched it all directions, reaching out for the mountain, as if it was persuading them to join back with the main island again.

It finally got to a point where there was no food left on the island because of the masses of people and creatures living together. They started dying off from starvation while not knowing that the crystal had penetrated the bottom of island. They were all going to die.

Death was certain now. All because they believed they would be safe. All because they didn't explore the cave before there was a wall blocking the entrance and report the crystals before hand and didn't take action fast enough.

All because of some, what seemed to be, innocent crystals.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and make sure to leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	27. Chapter 27

**27: Over the Moon**

The Silver Sabre fled from the falling fortress. It creaked and groaned as I t began to fall apart. Chunks of metal fell at a time. On several occasions, the Silver Sabre almost got hit by the metal. Luckily Helen was skilled at steering and was quick to avoid them, but had a few close calls. Sestiva stood on deck, trying to blast away the pieces with some spells she came up with and made them work. Other times, she would be below decks, manning the cannons to blast the metal to pieces so they didn't tear the ship in half.

They were going as fast as they could. The sails were down, but unlucky for them, there wasn't much wind. If there was wind, they would've been able to get out of the range of Cadiz faster, but now all they had to worry about was getting out alive.

Sestiva was panting from all the spells she was casting and most of her energy was drained. The trip out seemed like forever. Sestiva kept pushing her limits, blasting piece after piece of metal. She knew she was overexerting herself, but she didn't care.

_My energy isn't important. My life matters more. If I live, then I can rest and get my energy back, but only until then can I stop pushing my limits like this. _

Sestiva and Helen were sore. Everything hurt. They blocked it out with their minds as they listened to sudden loud creaks and groans. A shadow started to fall over them. Cadiz was falling.

_I will not stop. We still have a short route we need to take in order to be at a safe distance from Cadiz. We did it though. I knew she needed my help. Even though everything hurts, I must keep going. For the sake of our lives and for the sake of telling our story all over the Spiral._

Helen broke out of the windlane and pulled ship to a halt. She motioned for Sestiva to come up to the wheel with her.

The two of them watched as Cadiz fell. The top of Cadiz crashed down onto one of the islands, the impact taking a section of the island with it. The section of the island crumbled and broke off, the pieces then falling into the endless depths of the Spiral.

"We did it, Sestiva." Helen said, smiling a little bit. "We achieved you dream. The Armada's gone. Now we can head back home and tell our story to everyone."

"I guess so." Sestiva said dully, running her hands through her long hair as she gazed at the falling Cadiz.

"What do you mean you guess so?"

"I mean that there's still major fortresses out there. I want to take each and every one down."

"That's insane, Sestiva! We won't be able to get out of all of them alive you know!"

"Yes we will."

"Oh really? How do you know?"

"If we survived this, then we can survive all of those. We just got over the biggest part though, which was bringing down Cadiz. All we got to do is take down the others."

"Setting course for Port Regal. Let's do this thing!"

* * *

**I _finally_ gave Sestiva and Helen's ship a name. I procrastinated on that...a lot. More Cadiz action! :D **

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and remember to leave a review!**

**Until the next update,**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	28. Chapter 28

**28: Thin Ice**

Sestiva held the blade to the unarmed soldier's throat, another blade hovering millimeters above his forehead. She was about to kill him when she heard a shriek. She looked over to see Helen getting knocked over by a Battle Angel. They were always hard to kill, especially since they had wings and were super fast.

While Sestiva had her guard down, the Armada soldier she was _trying_ to kill, rolled over and pinned her to the ground. Sestiva's eyes widened in shock. She tilted her head back and brought it up to smash the clockwork's face. A jolt of pain went through her head. Her eyes were closed from the impact. She laid back down on the hard wooden deck and slowly opened her eyes. The clockwork was holding his face with one hand while he kept her down with the other.

Spider web cracks covered his forehead and the entire right side of his face. She looked over at Helen once again, to see that she was handling the Battle Angel just fine. The angel danced around with her knives while Helen shot rapid charges at her, keeping her at a distance, but at the same time getting a few hits on her.

She turned to look back at the soldier she was fighting.

"You don't know who you're dealing with here. You made a mistake becoming enemies with me. I might have let you go, but not anymore. There's no chance." Sestiva smirked, plunging both blades, one in each hand, into his waist. He stayed upright for a moment and then collapsed on top of her.

Sestiva pushed the now useless frame off of her and went to go help Helen defeat the Battle Angel.

The Angel made several attempts to kill Helen, but each time was avoided by Helen's charges. At one point, the Battle Angel landed right in front of Sestiva. Sestiva took both of her blades and thrust them into both of her wings, cutting horizontally and purposely making one wing smaller than the other.

The Battle Angel was too late to realize that her wings were cut and tried to take off towards Helen as another attempt to kill her. Because of her wings, she lost her balance and crashed to the ground. As Sestiva approached, she stood up, took out her small knives and grabbed Sestiva, holding one blade to her throat and one to her eye.

The Angel moved the blade away from her eye, and swiped the blade down her shoulder. Sestiva screamed in pain, the blood staining her clothes.

Helen was outraged, taking her rifle and pointing it at the Angel's head while she took a look at the wound she had made, having a temptation to cut deeper.

_Please help me, Helen. I don't want to die. Not here. Not before we eliminated all of the Armada. Kill her. Don't hesitate, Helen._

Sestiva remained calm as Helen adjusted her rifle.

Helen narrowed her eyes, looking through the scope she had just recently put on her rifle.

She fired, the charge tearing through the Angel's head. The knives clattered to the ground, the Angel staggering and falling over, landing on her side on the floor.

"Thanks, Helen. I wouldn't have survived without you." Sestiva said, giving Helen a big hug.

* * *

**So I decided to implement battle angles into this chapter. :)**

**I hope you enjoyed and remember to leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	29. Chapter 29

**29: Smoke**

A smell lingered in the air. A smell of fire. A smell of smoke. Helen took a look over the side of the Silver Sabre at Skull Island. There was so much fire that it would take entire days to put it all out.

Sestiva looked in horror as she saw Skull Island burning. It was that one potion she made. It was all her fault. The potion with the mini inferno that she had made long before. Someone had gone into the cave and opened the potion. They thought that they could contain it without the cork in the top.

When a little boy took the potion, he had no idea how it worked. He thought he could use it to heat his house. That night, the inferno consumed everything and everyone in his house. He was burnt to death. In the morning, the fire had spread and smoke clouded the air above Skull Island and it refused to dissipate. The people worked hard to put out the fires. The fire wouldn't go out no matter how much water they put on it.

Everyone panicked. They didn't know what to do. Only after a few hours of throwing water onto one fire, did it go out.

Sestiva and Helen docked the Silver Sabre and they jumped off, not risking having a chance of their gangplanks burning. They ran down the docks, avoiding the fire as they went.

The heat from the fire was more than normal fire. The heat made both of them sweat madly, but they didn't care. They ignored it and kept on running. They ran to their small building and skidded to a stop right in front of it. Their building was the only one whose fire had been put out. Half the building was burnt down, but they didn't put anything important on those floors.

Something always happened with Sestiva's potions, but it was never this bad. The only time she dealt with this potion was when she was making it and burned her hands in the process of doing so.

They looked around them. Building after building was being put out after putting tons and tons of water on it.

"Why do things always have to happen with my potions? They either break and cause chaos or get stolen and also cause chaos." Sestiva sighed, clearly disappointed. She looked at all the burnt buildings. They seemed to be okay. They were better than Sestiva thought they would be.

She approached the nearest house and stepped inside, pushing open the half burnt door. Everything inside was…incinerated. There wasn't anything left. There was just the walls, floor, and roof that remained in one piece.

_This is weird. Maybe I didn't quite figure out what this potion actually does. I just thought it burned. Burned anything in sight. Anything. But it seems to only burn the inside of things, never travels outside except through openings. _

Sestiva thought for a while. Helen closely observed the damage done.

"I've got it!" Sestiva exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.

"Got what?" Helen asked.

"The potion burns from the inside out!"

* * *

**I decided to do more experimenting with the potion effects, in this case lit come of Skull Island on fire. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :)**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	30. Chapter 30

**30: Fog**

Sestiva couldn't see in front of her. Nothing at all. She turned around frantically looking for a light source. Everything was grey. The fog was thick and all they had was a single lantern up by the ship's wheel so Helen could see. They were in a winelane, so they let it do the work. They didn't care where they went as long as they could fight the Armada there.

Sestiva used a light she made emit from the end of her staff, the light reflecting off the blades, giving a certain range of light all around her. It worked better than a lantern. When the lantern went out, Sestiva stood by Helen to give more light, although if gave off an eerie green light.

_How long is this going to last. There's been fog for the last day. Is this even fog? It could even be dust from mine blasting. The better thing is that Helen can see. I bet that other ships, including the Armada are having a hard time getting through this fog too._

"How long have we been in this fog, Sestiva? I've lost track since I can't see the sun anymore." Helen asked, eyes focused on the space in front of her, turning the wheel ever so slightly to keep them on course and not drift out of the windlane.

Sestiva was deep in thought and didn't hear Helen's question.

"SESTIVA!" Helen shouted leaning over into her ear. Sestiva jumped in surprise, interrupted from her thoughts. "Pay attention. This is why I have to tell you things so many times. It's because you don't pay attention."

"Sorry, Helen_. _I was just lost in thought there. I do that a lot. I understand why you yell at me so much now." Sestiva apologized, remembering Helen said something about fog. "We've been surround in the fog for around a day. This fog just won't lift up. I'm thinking it's from mine blasting, but I'm not really sure. I thought there was a sudden climate change in the Spiral, but then I remembered that climate changes can't happen that fa—"

"Sestiva." Helen said calmly, shutting Sestiva up. "I'm sure it's not either of those things. It's just fog. That means either the clouds above us came down or the clouds below us came up. That's all. No need to freak out over some thick fog."

Sestiva sighed and lifted her staff higher in the air, allowing her circle of light to be larger since reflected off the fog. She could see more now. The fog seemed to lift a little bit. A roaring sound could be heard from the side of the Silver Sabre. Helen steered towards the noise.

A gust of wind hit her as she could suddenly hear silence. A stormgate. There was no fog. She took away the green light from the staff.

"At least we can see now." Sestiva said happily, looking at the other worlds drift through the spiral.

* * *

**Yay, more sailing! Sorry I updated so late, but I hope you enjoyed and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	31. Chapter 31

**31: Ocean**

A charge flew past the mast, scorching the wood that it hit. Spells flew right back in the direction it came. Only the sound of running, charges, and spells were heard on the Silver Sabre. It was their way of passing time.

The skyway's wind was high, so Sestiva and Helen had to adjust their aim for it to not get blown away in the wind. Helen was practicing sniping with her brand new scope from the previous island they visited. She was using Sestiva as a moving target. Sestiva on the other hand used Helen as a stationary target, but she was practicing running and casting spells at the same time, which for her, was a big challenge. She didn't want to stop in the middle of a battlefield to cast a single spell and have the risk of getting wounded or killed.

Sestiva watched the barrel of Helen's gun moving to her position. From her still position, she bolted to the left, watching Helen's rifle point towards her once again. Raising the staff above her head, trying a new technique she came up with. A bright blue ball formed in the middle of the four blades on her staff, all pointing inwards with a medium sized space in between them all.

Helen fired her charge. Sestiva saw it coming and did a back flip over it, while still in the air, jerked the staff so that the bladed end was facing Helen. The bright blue orb launched itself at an extremely high speed towards Helen. Helen threw herself in a random direction, hoping not to get hit. She landed on her knees, the orb whistling by her face, her face and the orb only centimeters apart.

_What is that? Sestiva has good aim. If she wanted, she would make a good musketeer. A good swashbuckler even. How does she even come up with these new techniques? _

_Wait. I don't hear her moving anymore. I'll take the chance while she's off guard and get an actual shot._

Helen bolted up from her kneeling position and located Sestiva within seconds. She fired several shots two of which hit Sestiva right in the stomach. She flew backwards into the mast, stunned.

"You're faster than I thought, Helen. It seems that you tried to take the advantage of me standing still. I was caught off guard. Nice shot." Sestiva said, laughing, throwing her hands up in defeat.

"Thanks, but remember, _never_ let your guard down in battle." Helen said, partially scolding Sestiva for letting her guard down.

Sestiva nodded, and picked up her staff again. They continued to go at it as they sailed through the skyway. They wouldn't stop training until the trip was over. They were just going to let the windlane do its thing and take control.

Helen occasionally got hit with one of Sestiva's spells. She laughed it off, and Sestiva attempted to steer the ship in the massive oceans of skyways. It was going to be fun and training for the rest of the trip.

* * *

**And even more sailing! Yay! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :)**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	32. Chapter 32

**32: Fire**

Armada ships swarmed Skull Island as hundreds of Armada soldiers at a time, left to raid whatever the island. The citizens of Skull Island were running back into their houses, parents pulling their kids inside. They bolted their doors shut and closed their windows. Soldiers stood guard over every door to make sure nobody got out and they would shoot any stragglers that weren't safe in the shelter of their own home.

Lines of musketeers marched down the sandy ground as people starred in horror from their small windows. They covered their children's eyes as they marched. Silence washed over the entire island, the only sound being heard being the Armada's commands and the sound of marching.

Suddenly, a woman's begging voice could be heard.

"No! Please! Let me bring my child inside! You can't kill her! She's the only thing I have left, but please spare her!" The woman cried, tears cascading down her face like waterfalls. She reached out to try and grab her daughter's hand, but the marine holding her stepped backward. The marine held the blade of his halberd closer to the girl's throat. "Please. Let her go."

"Formation!" the Commander ordered rather calmly. The soldiers formed a circle around the now sobbing mother. They fixed their bayonets and awaited further commands. "Take aim."

The soldiers raised their rifles. The little girl's eyes grew wide in shock as she stood a few feet away from her mother. Her mother's pleas were unheard and ignored. They were futile. The musketeers' bayonets were just a foot away from the mother's head.

The Commander raised a hand as a signal. The soldiers fired into her head, the blood spattering in all directions, some of it getting onto the poor girl's face. She burst into tears. The marine holding her removed the halberd from her throat and set it down gently in the sand along with his shield. He removed the body from the scene, throwing it over the edge of the island. The little girl screamed and screamed for her mother to come back.

The marine came back and picked up his halberd and shield, handing the halberd to a nearby musketeer, who carried it for him while he carried the girl to their ship, The Vendetta.

He set her down onto the deck and took his halberd back from the musketeer. He kneeled down and spoke to her.

"You're going to become _one_ of _us."_ The marine said, the rest of the ship's crew getting to work on setting sail. "Even if you're not physically a soldier of the Armada, I'll make you one. I'll teach you _everything_."

The soldier was surprisingly nice to her. She thought that the Armada was brutal, but now she was having second thoughts.

She stayed silent. She slowly nodded and he got started right away.

"Put this on." He said, handing the ten year old girl a mask to wear, along with a bicorn. She willingly put it on. He handed her a uniform and she changed into it. "All you need is a proper weapon, then, and only then will we get started with proper training."

* * *

**Okay, the Armada is OOC. I was trying to experiment with my ideas and it came out like this so I apologize. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :)**

**Also, happy Mother's Day! :D**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	33. Chapter 33

**33: Darkness**

The small skiff emerged from the darkness as it exited the stormgate. The cool breeze caught onto the sails as it pulled into the wind lane. A figure emerged from the shadows, long hair flowing to the right of it.

The figure covered its eyes with one arm as the sunlight hit harshly from above and the figure could now be seen. Sestiva Zipman, holding her staff on one hand. She was in her battle stance, waiting for her enemy to strike first, her back facing the hull.

The ship turned so that it was heading in the direction of a rather large cave, big enough to fit three galleons.

A hiss could be heard as a charge fired. Sestiva, trying out a new technique, tried absorbing the hit with one of her newest spells. She caught the charge in between the four blades and suddenly halted, skidding to a stop. She brought the staff back and swung it back the direction her sister was in, at the same time, the ship riding into the darkness.

The two continued to fight in the pitch—black cave. If they did stop however, they would die in a real battle, so to stimulate death, they would hit each other close to vital areas on the human body.

Helen fired charges at a rapid pace, Sestiva trying to dodge each and every one. One of them seemed to miss her eye and she was hit in the arm, causing her to lose balance and stumble a little bit. Even if it was light that was coming in her direction, the charges were nearly silent, which was how sniping in the spiral worked so well. It was _just_ a simple hiss.

Sestiva gripped her right arm, which held the staff, tightly, trying to block out the pain from the hit. Instead of casting a spell with her staff, she took the knife she had on the holst that was on her thigh. Several hisses came by a few seconds later and she took cover. They whizzed over her head, just barely giving away her location. She bolted up and threw the knife in the direction the charges came, a yelp coming afterwards.

Helen rolled up her sleeve of her coat to fully examine the wound. It had only grazed her, but Sestiva's aim was getting better. This was a _blind_ shot. She didn't know her location. All she knew was that she was there and threw the knife in her general direction. It just so happened to make a shallow cut in her arm.

Sestiva cast some of her own spells one after another. She seemed to run off of endless energy. She could only do so many spells before she would run out of energy to keep going. This time, she didn't care about how much energy she had. She wouldn't just let herself give out in the middle of a battle. It would get herself killed and she wanted to live long enough to completely annihilate the Armada.

The battle in complete darkness went on for hours, and not a single one of them even thought of giving up and ending the duel right there and then.

* * *

**More sailing yay! Please remember to leave a review and I hope you enjoyed!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	34. Chapter 34

**34: Night Light**

The ship creaked in the silence of the night, drifting in the windlane. Sestiva hoped she would just get a few hours of sleep for one night. Usually she'd be staying awake until morning either fighting off ships or practicing.

She couldn't sleep. She tried, but all plans failed. She groaned as she got up from her bed and went out of her cabin. She walked through the hallway barefoot, and stopped at the gun deck. She sat on a ledge next to one of the canons. Propping herself up on her elbow, she leaned out the small window that the canon stuck out of, the calmness of the skyway relaxing her a bit. The windlane seemed to give off a small glow.

The witchdoctor thought she heard Helen coming her way and she turned around, but nothing was there. She spotted her staff resting in the corner, but she didn't get it. She was way too tired, especially at this time in the night.

If they were not in a skyway, it was pitch—black inside the small skiff, but now when they're in the windlane, there was a rather small amount of light, just enough to let her see.

It was like her "night light" back at home. She would create a light with her staff when she slept, just to help her see better in the dark when she woke up.

Helen however, didn't need one. She said it hurts her eyes if she wakes up in the middle of the night. Sestiva didn't believe her, like she always did.

_She just likes the dark. I however, think that the dark is unfavorable and a little light should be emitting in the room at all times._

She watched the creatures in the wind lanes drift by as the ship passed them, making chirping and growling noises in the dark. She looked up at the stars, to see if she was able to see other worlds. The worlds weren't _that_ far apart she knew for sure. The tales she heard when she was little were entirely false.

"The worlds are too far apart for any pirate to go from world to world in the matter of days." The story—teller would say. "This is why you don't get to start sailing until you're much older."

The truth was that pirates are able to sail from world to world in the matter of hours. She had second thoughts about those old stories.

_The Resistance doesn't want us to risk our lives going to other worlds. If that's the truth, then why bother becoming pirates at all? What's the point of the Resistance if they only want us to remain in Skull Island's skyways. There is none. What was the whole point of sending raids to Valencia? There was none. So why should I even bother listening to the Resistance? _

"You're still up, Sestiva?" Helen asked suddenly, making Sestiva jump from the tear in silence.

"Yeah, I'm still up. I couldn't sleep…again." Sestiva responded, not making eye contact and continued staring into space.

"Same here. I'm having a hard time sleeping with all of this peacefulness. Do you feel like training?"

"Not sure, but we can if _you_ want to."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :)**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	35. Chapter 35

**35: Compromise**

"You're not going alone!" Helen yelled after Sestiva as she followed her, running out the door to their small building. "You'll die out there!"

"Do you _really_ have so little faith in me that I can't survive on my own, Helen? " Sestiva snapped, Helen being used to it had no change in expression. "You think you have to mother me over everything. I'm old enough to take care of myself you know. You aren't coming. End of story. I won't allow it."

Helen growled, upset that her own sister won't take her with her. She turned around so that her back was facing Sestiva. "If that's what you want. Have it your way then. Why don't you go ahead and sail away to Valencia. I'll eagerly await your return." Helen said, stalking off, hiding her true plans with a few simple sentences. She was going to go with Sestiva no matter what the cost.

_She's so stubborn. She definitely knows that Cadiz is a big challenge, but she wants to do it on her own with is a big problem. She's already bought a small skiff to use, so all I have to do is sneak on in the middle of the night right? No, she'll probably be awake, guarding it. It is most likely that someone will try and sneak aboard the ship in the middle of the night, but no one will do it in broad daylight right?_

_It has to work. It must. I am not going to have my little sister's dead body rot away in Cadiz. _

Helen went to her room, as quietly as she could, closing the door behind her. She locked it, and barricaded it with furniture so Sestiva couldn't come inside, not even knowing what was going on.

She fumbled through her closet to pullout her luggage bag and unlatched it, prying it open. She started packing her clothes, neatly refolding them to keep from wrinkling. She took a separate bag and put part of her rifle collection into it to take with her to where ever they were going. She wanted to leave part of it on Skull Island, just so they won't get destroyed while fighting in Cadiz.

She looked out the window. Sestiva was heading towards one of the shops to get some supplies for the trip.

_This is my chance. I have to do this carefully, or she'll know I'm there._

Helen sprinted to the docks, one bag in each hand. Running to Sestiva's ship, she flung the bags onto the ship, then climbing aboard. If she used the gangplanks, it would be obvious that someone had recently walked on them. She opened the door that led below decks and went to an empty cabin. She didn't really care which one. She hid the bags under the bed and soon, she slid under it as well pulling down the cot sheets to hide her.

She could feel the wooden planks groan from the movement, so she knew that they were starting to sail, little does Sestiva know that she's on her ship.

* * *

**So I have decided to introduce new characters in my sequal, Pandemic. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	36. Chapter 36

**36: Fantasy**

"That just isn't possible. Not for _you_, that is. Someone like you would die out there in an _instant_." Christopher Norrington spat. "You're _way_ too weak to go off fighting the Armada. Even if you _did_ get strong enough you _still _won't be able to handle them."

"If I'm weak…then how am I better than you?" Sestiva asked, raising an eyebrow at Christopher. "You're just saying that because you know you can't prove me wrong. You _liar_."

"Believe what you want. You haven't seen me in months, so I could be stronger than you now. Your _dream_ to conquer Cadiz is a _fantasy_. It will never come true. Not for a weak pirate like you."

"Fight me then."

The room suddenly got quiet as they saw the two pirates in their battle stances. The other pirates started to filter out, heading to the tavern while Sestiva and Christopher fought.

Sestiva had spent her time on her day off from training to make the four blades on her spear serrated. She had also taken the time to sharpen them to the point that they can cut through thick vines with ease.

His first move on her was something one should never do in battle. He charged forward, with his staff ready for a swinging motion. She blocked it with her own, his blade digging into her staff's handle.

Sestiva grunted as she threw him off and ran to the opposite side of the room. She blocked most of his attacks while she studied his attack patterns. Unlike him, she was able to attack while moving. Just like she learned from Helen, she dropped down to the ground and swept her leg in front and under his feet. He lost balance and fell to the ground, hitting the ground face-first.

He staggered to his feet and immediately started the process of casting a complex spell. Right as Sestiva was about to strike, a magic circle appeared just inches away and she was blasted backwards into the wall, her staff clattering to the ground as she lost her grip on it.

Blood trickled down over her eye. She sat slumped against the wall. After leaning to the side to reach her staff, she began to start casting her _own_ spell. One that she created on her own.

"Your attacks…are…_PATHETIC!" _Sestiva screamed, one eye stuck shut from the blood. "You can do simple and slightly complex spells. You can strike with just a weapon…but you _don't_ make spells of your own. Unlike you, I have created a spell that you WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO MATCH!"

She sped up quickly as she advanced towards him, staff ready for what seemed like to him, was going to be a thrust. He was too slow, so he blocked it himself.

"Who's the liar now?" He laughed, not knowing that the spell had a delayed effect.

Sestiva on the other hand, just had a wide grin as she stood still, vulnerable to any attack.

Christopher charged forward, and since he too had a blade on his staff, thrust it through Sestiva's stomach. He was sure that he had made a fatal blow. His eyes widened when he saw no wound on Sestiva's body and the last bits of his staff had just finished dissolving into black particles that rose continuously into the air.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!" He shouted in pure hatred and anger.

"It's something I've been working on and perfecting for the past few months. Some witchdoctors haven't realized it yet, but there are multiple things you can do besides attacking. To be precise there are three of them. Those of which are Construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. It's a mix of witchcraft and science. What I've just did is deconstruct your staff." Sestiva explained coldly, her free hand wiping away the blood over her left eye.

"Then recreate my staff then. Recreate it with every last detail."

Sestiva didn't reply, but instead started the motions of another spell. When she was finished, she swung her staff so that the tip ended up pointing to the empty space next to him.

There was silence until the sound of splintering wood disturbed it. Christopher's staff was embedded blade first into the floor. Christopher just stared at it in shock as Sestiva walked out the door, leaving him alone.

Christopher pulled the staff out and examined it to every last detail.

_It's perfect! Just as it was before. So she truly is better than me._

* * *

**Sorry for the late update, I had a swim meet and immediately had dinner afterwards. :( But anyways, here it is.**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	37. Chapter 37

**37: Magic**

Sestiva had always wondered if musketeers, like Helen, got to learn magic like she had. Had she learned it in secret and never practiced in front of her? Had she perfected it in just one day?

The young witchdoctor was sprawled on her bed. She was too deep into her own thought to notice the sounds of someone entering the house, which seemed to echo in her ears. She slowly sat up and ran her fingers back through her hair to keep it back, behind her ears. She took her staff where it rested at the corner of the room and opened the door without making any noise at all.

Helen set down her rifle on the table in the center of the room, and sharply turned around to see Sestiva eyeing her from her bedroom doorway. After making eye contact with her, she watched as Sestiva swiftly left their small home.

Instead of running up the steep slope like she normally would have done, she walked, the effort seeming to be more than what was required to run up the slope. Her thoughts clouded her mind as she reached the top. She pushed aside the vines as she entered her cave and moved to the center of the cave.

She assumed that Helen knew _some_ magic too. There were rumors that the teachers in other classes have started to teach magic as well. If that was true, then she had to start improving quickly, otherwise, Helen would be better than her, which was one of the last things Sestiva wanted.

Helen paced back and forth on the sand outside their home.

_Where did she run off to? I know about the rumors, but they haven't even started yet. Should I tell her or should I let her go off training until late at night when she's practically half asleep in her cave? The only problem is, if I tell her, she'll be enraged that she did all that training for nothing and she shouldn't have worried so much._

Helen started banging her head on the walls of the building, trying to make herself think harder, but nothing worked. She was just going to tell her. She was just going to go right up to her cave and tell her the rumors weren't in fact true.

Just like Sestiva had experienced, the steep slope was much harder to climb than usual. Every five feet she walked up, she slid back three. It was starting to annoy her. Most of the time, it took two minutes to walk up the hill, but today, it was taking at least half an hour if not more.

When she finally came to a rest at the top where Sestiva's cave was, she leaned against the rocks, sweat causing the clothes to stick to her body. When she turned her head towards the entrance, she could see vibrant lights coming from every corner in her line of sight. She peeled herself off of the rocks and shuffled into the cave, only to be met by a blade a couple feet away.

"Sestiva. I've been meaning to tell you, but those rumors ar—" Helen started, but Sestiva already knew what she was trying to say, so she shook her head in disapproval.

"—aren't true? Helen, I know. I saw one of my classmates pass by as I was running here. I asked them if they knew anything about the rumors and he said "I have an older sibling that's a privateer, and they haven't started training with spells yet. The will for sure start for soon though", which is how I know you haven't started yet." Sestiva explained, letting her hands fly freely to help express what she was saying.

"And you're here because?"

"…because…I wanted to be better than you. I know it's a childish idea, but…"

"If you would like, I could train with you."

"That'll be nice, as long as you don't bother me when I'm trying to learn new spells.

* * *

**Sorry for the late update. I hope you enjoyed and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	38. Chapter 38

**38: Masked**

Sestiva kept two Armada musketeers in her cave. Each one was on opposite sides of the room, so no matter where they were, they were too far away to communicate. One of them, kept trying to escape the chains that were bound around his limbs and neck, but due to the fact that the soldiers were extremely weak in strength, every attempt was wasted.

The young witchdoctor had always wondered if the soldiers could feel pain. She had begun by simply pinching them and scratching them. She watched their reactions. They didn't react when she expected them to. She started hitting them, punching them, stabbing them in the arms. Those didn't work either, but in the process of pounding her fists at one of them, she hit his mask, causing it to cover itself with cracks.

The soldier _did_ react that time, trying to bring his hands closer to feel the damage the mask had taken. He couldn't because of the chains holding him that he wasn't able to break.

Sestiva had turned away before she could see the cracks herself and proceeded to start slashing at the other soldier with her knife. She stopped mid—swing with her knife as the soldier she wasn't attacking spoke.

"You will _never _defeat the Armada." He "spat", though it only came out in a monotone. He fought against the chains, the chains rattling with every move that he made.

Sestiva turned around sharply, stalking over to the other musketeer, leaning inward so that he was only inches away from his face. She could now see the cracks all over his mask, as if it were a decoration. She backed up slightly.

"_Watch me!" _She hissed, balling her hands into fists, dropping the knife on the ground. "You will NEVER KNOW WHAT I CAN DO! DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND THE FEELING OF HATE?!"

Like she expected, she got nothing from the soldiers. If they could show expression on their faces, they would. They kept their head up high to prevent the chains from rubbing against the neck.

"That's what I _thought."_ She snarled, taking a step back from the soldier. She brought her hands up to the mask, feeling around for the edges. "Why don't you reveal what you have under that mask?"

She found the edges right under the fancy tricorn hat. She pulled it off with lots of force, thinking that it was probably stuck to his face. Surprisingly, it came off with ease. Stumbling backwards, she lost her balance and fell on her back.

The witchdoctor looked up to see what was uncovered. A whole board of circuits and wires, along with different chips that she had no idea what they exactly did.

She looked back down at the mask in her hands. It had shattered when she pulled it off and fell. She could see the several pieces of it in her hands.

She shot up and carefully extracted one of the chips from what was once hidden by the mask. She saw the soldier freeze for a second, and then go limp. Racing out of the cave with the chip in hand, Sestiva was determined to find out what the chip did. She burst through the door to her home, startling Helen, who was reading a book, and jumped when Sestiva made her sudden entrance.

The witchdoctor went into her room, slammed the door behind her, and sat down at her desk. She pulled out a fountain pen and pieces of parchment paper and begun studying the chip.

"What are you doing, Sestiva?" Helen asked curiously, on the other side of the door where she twiddled her thumbs anxiously.

"…I would call it research, but I can't talk right now. I'm trying to study something. " Sestiva said, with a touch of excitement in her voice.

* * *

**Yay! Armada torture! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	39. Chapter 39

**39: Hero**

Helen was standing on the mast, knowing that the Armada marines couldn't get her there. She shot from above, while her younger sister fought from the ground. Even though there were only a few Armada soldiers left, they were still fairly difficult to kill with only the two of them. They were still getting used to their speed.

She shot another marine down as soon as she spotted him trying to crossover onto _her_ ship. Sestiva however, wasn't doing as great as Helen thought she was doing since she had been distracted with a bunch of other soldiers.

Sestiva was trying to hold off another marine as he was advancing forwards to back her into a corner where she would be most vulnerable. She would have nowhere to run, and he would be too fast to block her if she attempted to escape.

Helen, worried about her little sister, fired at him, only to be blocked by the big, heavy shield he carried. He had his back turned towards the witchdoctor, which was the only way he could've blocked the charge of electricity.

"SESTIVA! RUN!" Helen shrieked as loud as she could. She went back to her aiming position and followed Sestiva with the scope, who had dashed away, knowing for sure that the bulky marine wouldn't be far behind. He weighed more than that of a musketeer, but they had to be built that way to withstand the weight of the heavy battle axe and shield. They were slower, but not slow enough to Helen's liking.

Sestiva had just recently learned how to construct material out of a new spell she made. If she had the time, she would use it to make a wall and protect herself behind it, but the current situation made it extremely hard to pull off. What Helen didn't know though, was that Sestiva wasn't only blocking the marine's relentless swings, but each moment she had the time, would begin casting a small part of the spell. She was close to finishing it.

"You can't get me now, can you?" Sestiva taunted, ginning and finishing the spell, forming a wall all around her, about two feet thick. It had sapped away most of her energy, putting all her power she had into it. She fell to her knees, wiping the sweat off of her forehead with the sleeve. There wasn't a way that a simple halberd could cut through two feet of stone could it? Wrong.

The marine was already trying to hack away at the moss covered stones surrounding her. Helen couldn't do anything, because of the wall in the way of her view. She was only able to see the tip of the feather on the soldier's bicorn and his halberd when he was going to strike down on the wall.

An idea popped into her head. She could shoot the halberd right out of his hands. She took aim and waited for the right moment. The soldier, unfortunately broke through the wall and raised his blade, preparing to take her head clean off her neck.

Helen didn't wait. She fired twice, once into the clockwork's axe, which flew right over the side of the ship, and into the soldier's neck, going right through and ripping apart some of the gears inside. She could clearly see the burned fragments fly out the back of his neck, and he fell back against the wall in a slumped position.

She killed the _last_ one.

She scrambled down the ladder and over to her sister, checking to see if she was okay.

"…you should've been more careful, Sestiva." Helen softly scolded, being careful not to be too harsh. Her sister had a near death experience anyway.

* * *

**After a long while, Helen has some action from her POV. I hope you liked this chapter and remember to leave a review! :)**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	40. Chapter 40

**40: Off-Balance**

Something didn't seem right. Sestiva was quieter than usual. If anything she was spending way more time in her new cave. Helen would go down there every once in a while would end up startling her every single time. Every single time she would close the book she was scanning through.

Helen would bring food down to her and make sure that she was getting a little light. Sestiva would create light from her staff and read a book, but not just any book. She would close the book too fast for her to see the title of it.

When she picked it up one night from the position on the dirt floor, it had no title, just a simple leather binding. Sestiva would be sleeping in a hunched over position in the corner of the cave, staff a few feet away from her reach.

Knowing better to wake her up, Helen left the cave and went back to their constructed house to sleep.

_What's in that book? I know I shouldn't go snooping in her things but…it's tempting. I'll go see what she's doing tomorrow. I'll come in the middle of the day instead at night. _

Early in the morning, Sestiva went back to reading her book, which Helen had thought about during the night, was about stronger spells. She was wrong, again. It was a book on power. It was about how to focus enough energy to make it as powerful as you would like it to be.

Helen went outside and crept as quietly as she could to the cave so Sestiva wouldn't hear her. The witchdoctor had been more alert and seems to have sharper hearing than before. Probably because she wasn't paying attention for the past few weeks now.

The musketeer snuck silently down the stairs, appearing at the bottom in the middle of darkness. She pressed herself against the back wall and moved herself to the corner. She could make out Sestiva's shape standing solitary in the middle of the room, head hung low, eyes closed, staff tip pointing towards the ground. One little noise and Helen was as good as dead. Sestiva would think that she was the Armada and try to kill her.

She watched as her sister's head suddenly snapped up, eyes glaring at the wall in front of her, staff ready for throwing if she had to. While the staff was in her right hand staying absolutely still, her left hand was going through a bunch of motions and she finally got into her battle stance.

In a flash, her staff was thrust in the direction of the corner opposite Helen. A bright beam of teal mixed with yellow and purple erupted from the center of the four blades, blasting the corner exactly where she expected it to be. A bright flash of light temporarily blinded her and she covered her eyes until she heard a sizzling sound on the wall. Every inch of the wall across from her were incinerated except for one spot.

The spot where Helen was all the way on the other side of the cave…and Sestiva noticed right away.

"How long have you been here, Helen?" Sestiva questioned in a threatening tone, turning around sharply.

"I just got here, actually." Helen replied, standing up from her spot and stretching. "That was some powerful spell. It will come to be usefully when we fight the Armada."

* * *

**Well we have some more from Helen's point of view! **

**Please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	41. Chapter 41

**41: Forget**

Sestiva had been busy making potions in her cave, cutting off access to her older sister. She blocked the doorway with a wall she constructed of small rocks. She'd been mixing potions all day, gathering everything she needed before entering the cave and sealing it off.

Helen, on the other side, had tried multiple ways of entering. She tried breaking down the wall of rock, but every time she even made a few rocks practically peel off from the wall and roll to the stone floor on Sestiva's side, which made Sestiva just make the wall even thicker than before.

"Ugh, why won't she let me in?" Helen groaned leaning the right side of her body against the entrance to the cave. "I could try entering from the top, but I'd have to break the ceiling. She won't talk and if I _do _break the ceiling, then it could possibly fall on her."

Helen, giving up on thinking about her options, climbed to the very top of the cave. When she hauled herself over a high ledge after reaching the top, which was a mostly flat area, she had to figure out _where_ she was going to enter.

Sestiva, down below, had just finished making another potion that exploded and was about to test it out. All she had to do was break the glass holding it and it would explode and set most of the things it makes contact with on fire.

The witchdoctor threw it at the ceiling, relatively close to where Helen was standing, but she had no idea her sister was up there. She did know that she would have to cast a spell to protect herself during the explosion, to make sure no debris fell or hit her in the process.

A complicated magic circle formed above her head and the potion bottle exploded. It blasted a clean hole through the ceiling, creating a big gust that blew her backwards. Digging her heels into the ground to stabilize herself, she carefully analyzed the explosion, taking careful notes so she could write them all down later.

Helen nearly fell off and plummeted eighty—five feet to the ground. She managed to get a grip on the ledge she just moments ago, pulled herself on top of. The only difference this time was that she had nowhere to support her feet. She was dangling almost one hundred feet off the ground. She swung back and forth, trying to get good momentum to swing her legs up and onto the ledge as well.

When she finally got back up, she peered down into the hole.

"Sestiva, what are you doing?!" Helen demanded, putting her hands on her hips. "You nearly _killed_ me!"

"You were there? Why didn't you tell me, I would've waited until you got down! Yet you didn't say anything so actually, you nearly got _yourself_ killed. Your fault, not mine!" Sestiva argued, a high pitched ringing in her ears from the blast.

Helen just scoffed and jumped down. She went over and blasted open the entrance with a charge, scolding Sestiva all the way back to their home.

* * *

**Aaaaaaand here's some potions for you too. :) I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! **

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	42. Chapter 42

**42: Memories**

Sestiva had been looking for Helen all day. It was almost sun set and she hasn't found the musketeer yet. She checked her cave, their house, and even the weapons shop. She wasn't there.

_Where could she be?! I've checked everywhere! She could be at one of her training classes, but the only problem is that there's no class today._

Helen was in their house. She was just being really quiet. She knew that Sestiva would search the house, but wouldn't search _everywhere_. She didn't check their basement. That's where she _always_ forgot to look. It was where Helen kept all of her old rifles and guns, lining the walls.

Each one she had used during her past training. She looked over to her left, where her first rifle was hoisted on the wall. It was dented and scratched all over. Helen wondered how it managed to stay in such good shape over the years that she had it.

The front door of their house squeaked. She could hear Sestiva enter, frequently shouting her name as she searched.

"Helen where are you?!" Sestiva called, pounding her fist on Helen's room door. "Helen? Helen come out off your room!"

When Sestiva got no response, she tried again, and again. When she still got nothing, she started to get irritated.

She kicked open the door, practically breaking the door off its hinges. She looked around, checking every corner. No matter how hard she looked, Helen just wasn't there. Sestiva pounded her fists on the wall, earning herself a loud bang from the wooden walls.

Helen down in the basement was startled, dropping her rifle, which fell to the floor with a clang. The sound echoed throughout the house and Sestiva's sensitive ears picked it up immediately. She threw herself down the stairs and found herself standing in front of the basement door, reaching out for the door handle.

She could hear groans coming from the other side as Helen stooped down to pick up the rifle. Putting it back on the shelf, she grabbed the next one that was closest to her.

_One of the oldest guns I've ever had. Whoever sold it to me said it was at least one—hundred years old. Even now I still question how it's still in good shape. It's rather dusty too. Might as well polish it while I'm still here._

Sestiva smoothly opened the door. Helen had always oiled the hinges on that door in particular, so no one will know if she's going in or out, or even if she's even there.

"Helen." Sestiva said, irritation growing by the second. "YOU'VE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME?! I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU ALL DAY!"

"I've done this a load of times. You've just never noticed." Helen shot back, not making eye contact and continued to polish her rifle. "Any little kid who's as stubborn as you needs to learn how to be perceptive. Oh and when you check everywhere, make sure it's _everywhere_. You didn't even _bother _checking down here did you?"

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**I hope you liked this chapter and please leave a review! **

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	43. Chapter 43

**43: Pearly Gates**

Sestiva was about to sail on her first ship. She knew she couldn't trust herself to sail. She was easily distracted and would crash the ship within seconds.

"Helen, are you willing to sail the ship?" Sestiva asked curiously, putting her hands in her pockets and looking down nervously.

Helen looked back at Sestiva confused. She didn't even know that Sestiva had bought a ship and yet sail it.

"What do you mean?" Helen hesitated, not understanding what was going on and scratched her head.

"I mean exactly what I said before." Sestiva plainly stated, shaking her head. "Do you want to sail the ship? "

Helen opened her mouth to say something, but was stopped as Sestiva interrupted. "Before you ask any questions, your suspicions are most likely correct due to the fact that I _have_ bought a ship a few days back if you don't remember me saying I was leaving to do something on the docks. It was moored in the dock since then. Oh, and I almost forgot. Before you lecture me about my stupid decisions and my behaviors, let me tell you that I don't plan on us staying here. If you do not want to leave Skull Island you may stay, but _I_ will still go."

Helen had nothing left to say but, "Why do you want to leave?"

"I simply don't want my activities to be monitored by those on Skull Island. There are those who will baby you and treat you like kids no matter what age you are, which I cannot stand any longer. I am forced into things I'm not willing to do, and lastly, I want to keep a close eye on the Armada."

Helen sighed in understanding and went back to what she was doing before, polishing her rifles, again. When she finished, she pulled open the front door and went outside to the docks to see what the ship looked like so she could explore it later. From where she stood, she could see Sestiva running up and down the gangplanks, probably cleaning it since she kept running in and out with a bucket of water.

Sestiva lugged the large bucket up the gangplank. When it was filled with water, it weighed around twenty—five pounds. Her hands had calluses from holding it in one place every time for the past few days. When the witchdoctor had bought the ship from the dockmaster, he had warned her that it was in terrible shape and she would have to fix it up on her own.

She didn't care how much effort it took, she wanted to move to Cadiz no matter what. The squid—figurehead that was made of pure silver, glinted in the light compared to the rest of the ship. Though, it was obvious that Sestiva cleaned and polished the squid first and then worked her way down the rest of the ship.

Helen's eye twitched. She couldn't resist the ship any longer. She couldn't wait a few more days until Sestiva was done. In fact, to make it go faster, she was going to help. Sestiva would probably hate her for doing so, but Helen wouldn't mind because Sestiva always said she hated her anyways.

Helen took a step forwards, and then another, and another until she was coming at a full sprint down the stairs to the docks and towards the ship and skidded to a complete stop in front of it, admiring every detail.

"I'll ask you again." Sestiva demanded, bucket of water in one hand, and a cloth in the other. "Can yo—no. That's not right. _Will_ you sail the ship, Helen? You're the only one I know who knows how to sail a ship properly. You _have_ to be the one to sail it."

Helen sighed at Sestiva's words, eyes settling into a deep glare. "Sail to where? I won't sail unless you tell me where we're going and when?"

"That's the problem. I don't know. Where ever the Armada is. Take me there. We leave tomorrow."

* * *

**Here is some pre-Cadiz stuff. I hope you enjoyed and leave a _review!_**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	44. Chapter 44

**44: Bullshit**

"Put it back, Sestiva." Helen ordered, spinning her rifle on the strap to ease her boredom. "Where'd you find it anyways?"

"I found it within the fortress." Sestiva said, playing around with what she found, trying to take it apart, but with no success. "It's the Armada's. One of the soldiers dropped it while we were fighting. I think it's a secret weapon of mass destruction, don't you think?"

"Put. It. Back. Now. You never know when it'll explode or something. Throw it off the island. Do something with it, but you mustn't keep it here. Especially since we just escaped Cadiz itself, the Armada is still after us. They could be looking for it."

"Knowing you, Helen, you don't want the Armada to get the upper hand do you? If they have an advantage with whatever this thing is, then might as well keep it, right?" Sestiva bounced it back and forth in both hands, sending a wave of panic through Helen's body.

"Get rid of _it_. It's still too dangerous for us to keep it. So get rid of it now."

Sestiva didn't budge. She spent all the trouble trying to figure out what it was and yet Helen was trying to make her get rid of it. If only she knew what it did, then she would be able to keep it.

_Wait! Couldn't I just use magic to fake it? It'll be enough to make her seem like I through it when it's in my cave during that time_. _Helen's always has been very gullible. Falls for the slightest tricks. _

"…twenty—three ships are alert all around Valencia so we must find a way to escape to Marleybone if we can an—" Helen informed Sestiva, but Sestiva was tuning her out, focusing on what to do with the small object in her hand. "—Sestiva are you even listening? Hello? Hey!"

Sestiva snapped back from her thoughts, forcing herself to make eye—contact with Helen.

"It's a good plan. When do we start?" Sestiva asked, assuming she knew what Helen was talking about earlier.

"Tonight." Helen replied, turning around and leaving.

Sestiva stumbled down the stairs to her cave, putting the object down on the floor. She began a pattern of movements with her staff to make a duplicate image that remained useless no matter what the object actually did. Bright purple lights from the spell bounced off every wall, illuminating the room in purple, Sestiva's hair flying back. She put the real one in her bag along with several Pathogen bottles, to hide that it was there. She picked up the duplicate and went to the surface to talk to Helen.

"Helen! I tried to figure it out, but I still don't know what it does. I guess I'll be throwing it away now." Sestiva pouted and sadly walked over to the island's edge. She threw it as hard as she could away from the Island, watching it fall. Though, the look on her face was just a mask. She smirked as she watch it disappear beneath the thick layer of clouds below everything, wiping it off her face as she turned around, showing the mask once again.

"Did you _really_ throw it, Sestiva? Or was it a fake one, like you always used to do with things back at home." Helen asked suspiciously.

"I _did_, Helen. No need to get suspicious." Sestiva muttered, rolling her eyes.

"I still think you're lying. Oh well. Your loss, not mine." Helen walked away quickly to figure out an escape route for them to take without being spotted.

Sestiva's smirk returned once Helen had her back turned. She pulled out the object from her pocket and stepped back into her cave, pressing everywhere on the object to somehow open it.

* * *

**Post-Cadiz stuff, yay! Also, happy Father's Day! Please leave a review and I hope you enjoyed!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	45. Chapter 45

**45: Colored**

Everything was black or white for Helen. Something either went right or went wrong. _If _it went wrong, then Helen would just find a way to fix it. That's what she normally did anyways. Not for Sestiva. There was no right or wrong. Everything would be bright and vivid in her eyes.

To Sestiva, there was nothing that went wrong. Everything always went right. There was _no_ way to fix things to her. She didn't even have battle plans. What the enemy does is unpredictable, so why does it matter?

Unlike Helen, who could process a situation at a fairly average speed, Sestiva could think faster and process faster than Helen, which gave her an advantage in battle.

Sestiva bolted down the stairs of their small building, crashing into Helen on the way down. She fell backwards back onto the stairs, but hauled herself upwards and sprinted out the door, earning a rather confused looking Helen.

"In a rush again, Sestiva?" Helen whispered to herself, picking herself up off the floor about a minute after Sestiva left. "Always trying to get training in aren't you? You should stop every once in a while, before you can hurt yourself. Unlike the way you see things, I think something can go wrong while you train. "

_I should go check on her now. Even if it has only been a few minutes now, but I shouldn't interfere with what she wants to do. You know what? I don't care anymore. I'm going to check on her and I won't care what she does. Since she's been doing this for the past week, something can definitely go wrong._

Helen sighed as she walked out the door, closing behind her. The sand drifted around when the wind picked up and then settled somewhere completely different. Pirates were talking by the docks, most about their first ship and how excited they were to finally get to sail the open skyway.

She trudged up the steep hill and stood outside the cave, peering through a small gap in the vines so Sestiva wouldn't see her watching.

Sestiva's eyes were set in a deep focused gaze that rested on the wall. A sequence of twirling and catching her staff, began a spell in which Helen had never seen before. Sestiva hadn't shown it in battle yet, because at the time, she was still perfecting it, and it was almost there. Almost…_perfect_.

Helen quieted her voice, to make herself sound distant.

"Sestiva? Where are you? What are you doing?" Helen said, kicking the sand, making it sound like she was approaching the cave. "Sestiva, are you training again?"

"Helen?" Sestiva asked, putting her potions away. "What are you doing here. I thought I said I didn't want to be interrupted."

"Sestiva, you never said that. Now I know you're in your cave. Working on some new spells?"

"Of course I am. What else would I be doing? Polishing my guns like you? I don't think so."

"Sestiva, I know, but you need to stop running off like that."

* * *

**Yay, even ****MORE potion making. (.-.) I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review! Oh and don't explode, okay? Thanks. Herp derp.**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	46. Chapter 46

**46: Embrace**

Sestiva shoved her last Pathogen bottle in her pocket. If she was going to get caught, they would take her pouch, not the bottle now hidden inside her pocket. The Armada soldier around the corner, marched up and down the hallway, once, exchanging with another soldier.

She stood there for hours, waiting for the perfect time to let Helen go unnoticed down the hallway opposite the one the soldier was patrolling. She didn't care if her legs were hurting from standing. The whole attack had to be planned perfectly, or the soldiers would notice and capture them. Since they were very sensitive to sound, both the witchdoctor and the musketeer had to control their breathing to make it as quiet as possible.

The soldier, from what Sestiva could tell, was walking farther down the hallway this time, probably to exchange once again. She kept her watch on the Armada musketeer, using one hand to tell Helen to move as quietly and quickly as she could down the hallway. Helen took off, faster than Sestiva had seen before.

Sestiva's job, was about to begin. She had to distract the soldier in order to give her sister enough time to at least make it up the stairs. Turning sharply, she hauled herself around the corner and did the best she could to run past the soldier to get his attention. Right as she got to him, he noticed and turned around, just in time to see four blades coming in the direction of his face.

The soldier dodged, but just _barely_. He followed the shaft of the weapon, to find Sestiva standing at the other end. He saw the fierce look in her eyes, the way she attacked, and the speed of each swing. The rifle he held in his hand, would remain useless unless he got to the hallway across from him, the one Helen had traveled down.

"Oh no you don't." he heard the girl mutter, the blade catching his uniform, tearing a hole in it. He had no choice but to use the rifle at point blank, which could kill her at this range. Of course, like he had been instructed during the first two days after he was created, he had to interrogate her. He wasn't supposed to kill unless there was a mass threat.

_One_ person just couldn't possibly be a mass threat, could it? No. Unless…they had a secret weapon, but according to the Armada, a pirate just doesn't _have the brain capacity_ to have a _secret_ weapon. Pirate's only had one goal in mind: _Kill and conquer. _All they ever wanted was bloodshed.

In return, the Armada also set a goal: _Eliminate the Pirates_

He _fired_, the girl somehow catching it with her staff. She made the purple charge blue, and blasted it right back at him.

Distracted for just a _few_ seconds, he heard the girl scream in fury and was able to see her try to stab him. He blocked it, holding his rifle up for protection, pushing against the other weapon's force. He twirled around and hooked his arms under hers. Surprised, she dropped the staff, clattering to the ground. He started to drag her to one of the cells close by.

Sestiva thrashed around in the soldier's grip, trying to become free of his grasp. She tilted her body, and adjusted her feet, then thrust her legs as hard as she could, spun sideways. She could feel her body impacting with the brass floor as the musketeer stumbled backward with the sudden loss of force.

The soldier had fallen, still in the process of standing up. Before he knew it, he heard glass shatter. He looked to his right. The bag the girl have had fallen off during the fight, the strap burned apart from the charge he fired.

The musketeer could feel something seeping through his uniform, something…_wet_. Could it be that this…_pirate_…had some…intelligence after all?

* * *

**Sorry for the late update! I tried to write from the Armada's point of view. I hope you enjoyed and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	47. Chapter 47

**47: Family**

The shipped rocked side to side as it dropped its anchors into the windlane, stopping for the night. The sails were beginning to be brought up to prevent any drifting, but other than the rustling of the cloth sails, there was silence.

Figures could be seen running about the ship, moving items below deck, securing them so they didn't blow off the ship in the wind while they were asleep. Birds flew past, some settling on the mast and other parts of the ship.

Sestiva, snuck out of her cabin. As soon as she stepped out, she stopped, just listening to the sounds around her. There was…silence. Everywhere she went on the ship, there was silence. As she approached Helen's cabin at the opposite end of the skiff, so Helen could get to the ship's wheel faster if any case they were under attack, she looked out every porthole she possibly could, to see the view of other islands.

Helen's door was cracked open just a bit, which was enough for Sestiva to look inside. There was a candle sitting on her desk, almost burning out. Maps were scattered all over the desk. Helen was asleep in her bed next to her desk, rifle still at her side. She was well prepared for an ambush, maybe even a surprise attack on a fortress.

Sestiva leaned in a little more, to see a greater image of the room. She could see Helen's shoulders rising and falling to her breathing. She slowly, but quietly closed the door, and went up the wooden stairs to the main deck.

Sestiva emerged from the stairs barefoot. She didn't mind the splinters she was getting; she did it all the time. She climbed up the ropes to the crow's nest, where she sat with her back against the top of the mast, looking up at the dark, night sky. She wondered about her parents. She surely didn't remember them, but since Helen was older, she might remember.

Sestiva remembered Helen mention them a couple of times, but she _never_ went into detail about what happened to them.

_Did they just disappear? Abandon us? Slaughtered by the Armada? Tortured? Captured? Did their ship sink? I guess I'll never know. At least, that's fine with me. If I lived without them for almost 15 years, which is what Helen told me, then I will be fine either alone or with Helen. I don't really have a choice. Helen will go where ever I go no matter what. She's loyal, versus I—well I don't know quite yet. Maybe I'll find out._

Sestiva continued to stare at the stars, picking out constellation by constellation. After all, she learned it in her witchdoctor classes, when Madam Vadima was showing all the students how to navigate themselves around the skyway.

Losing track of time, Sestiva's eyes grew heavy, and she was struggling to keep them open.

_How long will it be until I get to know who my parents were?_

She closed her eyes, and drifted into the endless depths of sleep.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	48. Chapter 48

48: Out of the Blue

Sestiva Zipman watched as Cadiz started to disappear from view. They had just escaped and were trying to get away from the Armada ships chasing after them.

The creaks that Cadiz made were like music in Sestiva's mind. In this case, music that was able to fall apart and collapse. Bits and pieces fell off, Cadiz slowly leaning towards Sestiva and Helen's ship, which was sailing away as fast as it could. Even Helen was positive that they were pushing the ship to its limits.

The wooden floors and sides of the ship groaned as the wind pushed its way past it, the ship itself going at top speed. Sestiva, who was standing at the very front of the ship, she herself, struggling to stay on her feet with the wind pushing her back.

She had kept her staff below decks, to prevent it from blowing away. The mast looked like it was about to tear. Sestiva was searching for ships that could possibly ambush them in the middle of the skyway. Sure it looked safe now, but anything could happen.

Unfortunately, Sestiva wasn't careful enough. An Armada ship slowly sailed out in front of them. Rooke was on board, telling her and Helen to stand down.

"Stand down, the both of you. We hearby arrest you for resistance against the Armada. If you don't come aboard our ship immediately, our only other option will be to gun you girls down. Arrest or death. You chose." Rooke shouted over the wind, in his usual stiff position with his axe in his right hand.

Helen and Sestiva had the same look on their faces. They had the same plan.

_Trick Rooke into thinking we're going in for arrest, then swerve around their ship and move on._

Then again, the Armada had better cannons, but they took much longer to load. In this situation, speed will win. Rooke's ship was a heavy and slow galleon, but the sister's ship was a small, light skiff, great for traveling at fast speeds.

The small skiff slowed and glided towards the galleon. Soldiers on the galleon, were ready with the gangplanks, so Rooke himself could go take the sisters onto the large ship. Unexpectedly though, the skiff jolted forward, leaving Rooke surprised and confused, he looked back at his, what seemed to be, shocked crew members. When he turned back around, the skiff was gone, past the galleon.

"Turn the ship around. They went past us and they won't be getting far." Rooke ordered, his crew once again, running about the decks.

Helen remained focused on the skyway, not looking back. She knew that Rooke would follow them, which is when she pinpointed an island off in the distance. It was rather large, and if she could bottle up the ship in time, then Rooke might think that they left the skyway.

She spun the wheel violently to the left, letting it spin until the ship turned about ninety degrees. Sestiva, as they got close enough to "dock", jumped down onto the island from the side, Helen doing the same, then whipping out the bottle, and bottling up the ship. No evidence remained that they were still there, in Valencia somewhere.

"Now all we need to do is wait. It may be days, weeks, maybe even months, but we must make sure that Rooke is nowhere near us when we escape." Helen said, her voice containing a little bit of worry.

Sestiva nodded in return and watched as Rooke's ship passed by herself and Helen, both of them hidden in the thick trees.


	49. Chapter 49

**49: Home Stretch**

Sestiva turned as her staff flew out of her hand, hitting the back wall of the sparring chamber. Sestiva knew that there would be no time in between her opponent's attacks to get her staff, which was laying in the far corner. Sestiva turned so that her back was towards her staff, pretending to look around for it, taking steps back in order to get as close as she possibly could.

"Are you _stupid?_! You're staff's nowhere close to being where you're looking!" her opponent laughed, sneering, glaring eyes glaring holes into Sestiva's face, trying to intimidate her.

Her opponent was taller, and stronger than her, which intimidated Sestiva only a little bit. She _wasn't_ scared at all, like her opponent expected her to be.

While her opponent, whose name she found out earlier in the battle, Payton Stern, was distracted, examining her fingernails, Sestiva slowly leaned down, trying not to catch Payton's attention and picked up her staff.

"I'm _not _stupid, Payton. The one who's stupid is _you. You_ let your guard down, not _me."_ Sestiva growled back, pointing the bladed end of her staff towards Payton, a baby-blue orb already forming at the tip, while Sestiva continued the rest of the spell hidden behind her back.

"Oh no, whatever am I going to do? A small, blue orb? What are you going to do? _Poke me with it?_"

Sestiva's gaze hardened as she jolted forward, sending the orb flying Payton's way. Payton raised her pole-axe and attempted to block it, but the force was too great and sent her and her weapon flying, axe-first, Payton's body following. She hit the ground, dropping the axe and rolling another five feet until she stopped completely.

Payton struggled to her feet, wobbling the straighter she stood. Her glare towards Sestiva intensified, leaning most of her weight on her large weapon.

"WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU _BRAT?!_" Payton screeched as she raised her axe for what looked like a final swing. Sestiva, on the other side of the room, had to cover her ears. Sestiva was too distracted by the noise and barely had any time to react to Payton's swing.

She threw her small body to the side, avoiding the axe blade by less than five inches. The axe blade caught onto her long, red hair, cutting off about 2 inches. Sestiva was pulled backward from the sudden tug in her hair, but then fell to the floor once the axe cut through.

"What did _I _do?! All _I_ did, was fight using my own tactics! Witchdoctors and buccaneers have different styles of fighting…didn't you know? Oh wait, you must have _forgotten_." Sestiva taunted, earning a grin from the buccaneer.

Payton stayed silent, and moved on with the battle. She cornered Sestiva and put the large axe blade right underneath her chin.

"Admit it, Sestiva. You've lost. There's no wonder why witchdoctors are so _weak_."

"Weak?! I can tell you that witchdoctors _aren't_ weak. I'll show you what I can _really_ do."

Sestiva got ready for her own finishing blow. She positioned her staff below the blade, then thrusting it away from her and downward, making the blade crash harmlessly to the floor. Sestiva stood on top of the blade, so Payton couldn't pick it up, and cast a Soulreaver spell her way, making Payton freeze in her tracks.

Payton collapsed against the wall.

"There's no way. _No way you could've beaten me!_ I'll fight you again soon, but I have to go." Payton growled, stomping out the door, slamming it shut behind her, her pride shattered.

* * *

**I really love writing fight scenes because I get to do whatever the heck I want with the opposing character! :) Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and please leave a review!**

**Until the next update,**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	50. Chapter 50

**50: Challenge**

Sestiva sat at a small wooden table in the middle of Kraken Skulls Tavern, waiting for the sparring room to open up. Sparring had gotten more popular in the past few weeks, making it harder for Sestiva to find an open room. If she _did_ find an open room, then there most likely wouldn't be any challengers, since most have gone home already after they've fought their match.

It was already dark and the tavern was still full of pirates waiting for a match to open up. Sestiva groaned and buried her head into her arms, bored as she waited for what seemed like five years. When she picked her head back up, she spotted two pirates exit one of the sparring rooms, and she calmly got up and walked out of the Kraken Skulls Tavern, watching through the window as she walked out, to see if any other pirate would wonder in as well, looking for a fight.

She stood in the middle of the wooden flooring of the sparring room, waiting for an opponent. She tapped her foot and occasionally glanced at the door in case she spotted it opening. She was growing impatient, and Helen was expecting her home in a few hours.

Breaking the silence, a guy that looked about ten times more powerful than her, carrying a serrated sword along with a spiked shield, stepped through the door. He had to be at least a foot taller than Sestiva, if not more. A deep voice rumbled through the air as he spoke.

"Are _you_ my challenger?" He asked, taking his sword out, getting his shield ready, a buccaneer's crest engraved onto the front. His serrated sword looked sharp enough to stab through bricks, but Sestiva knew all too well that it wasn't possible for a sword to have that much power.

"I _am _your challenger, and I challenge you to a duel. We will fight until one of us is no longer able to continue. Let the battle begin when both of us are ready." Sestiva said, trying to get the duel done as quickly as possible so she could get home. She didn't want Helen to worry about her.

The powerful male twirled his sword in the air as he prepared to throw it in Sestiva's direction. He raised his shield to cover his face. It was like he knew _exactly_ what Sestiva was planning on doing.

The serrated sword whistled through the air, barely giving Sestiva enough time to dodge, only slightly grazing her left thigh. Sestiva ignored the stinging pain caused by the blade, pushing it to the back of her mind.

The sword was now closer to her than to her opponent, who was all the way on the other side of the room. She picked up the heavy weapon and laid it down in front of her. She began her spell of deconstruction, the spell she had made on her own after months and months of perfecting it.

After she finished the spell, she drove her staff blade against the sword's handle, creating small white flash of sparks. The bigger buccaneer squinted in order to make out what was happening. His sword was now incased in white light, began to dissolve in little squares, floating up into the air and disappearing . He only had his shield to defend himself.

The seemingly weak witchdoctor was more powerful than he thought. He thought it would be easy, looking at her small weapon compared to his big, heavy sword and shield. He thought the bladed staff was a pathetic weapon. A pathetic weapon for a pathetic pirate. _Perfect._

He thought it wasn't even close to being a challenge since his challenger was a small, little girl. How wrong he was. The once powerful serrated sword was gone, his best weapon. He turned to the exit and started to walk out of the room with his damaged pride.

Sestiva knew that the battle would be quick from the start. From the way her opponent lumbered across the room when he walked in, which was pretty slow, to the way he was in his battle stance. The way he raised his sword made his moves predictable, but his powerful, fast throws were something she had to be careful of. His battle stance was one that had his feet placed in awkward positions, his feet turned inwards. He could easily be put off balance, and the sword and shield he carried weren't helping him balance his weight at all.

Sestiva returned home, twirling her staff in pure boredom. That match was certainly no _challenge_ to her. It was like taking down a pirate that was first starting his or her lessons. _Easy_.

Why weren't pirates as strong as they used to be? What happened to them? Did they get sent out in ships to attack the Armada?

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! **

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	51. Chapter 51

**51: 50/50**

Sestiva and Helen wondered through the hallways of the Armada fortress. Its stone walls giving protection from close range attacks from the outside. The narrow halls inside the fortress had to force Sestiva to reduce her spells to a small space, which meant there only was a fifty-fifty percent chance that it would work. If it didn't work, then she'll have to resort to use her blade on the end of her staff.

An Armada soldier patrolled the hall a few meters down and his back was currently facing the two sisters. It was a miracle he hadn't spotted them yet. Sestiva began slowly moving her staff to fit in the small hallway, barely able to fit it. She had to turn it sideways to have enough room. She softly put the end of her staff onto the ground. Her Ghostwail spell, made its way to the soldier who was now only a few feet from them was attacked and he dropped his gun, soon collapsing to the cold floor.

Helen took the opportunity to open a small closet where more rifles were stored and shoved the soldier in there, leaving just barely enough room for the wooden door to close. She then took the rifle for herself and slung it over her shoulder with her own, just in case hers broke during the time that she was in the fortress.

Sestiva was walking behind Helen, glancing behind her every once in a while to see if any of the Armada soldiers were coming their way. Helen tried her best to mask any noise that she made, only speaking in soft whispers that were almost inaudible. When they walked, they made sure to place their feet gently. Helen had put silencers on her rifle which she had made with bearskin, leather, and sheets of metal to keep it sturdy and standing.

Sestiva had put leather on the edges of the blades on her staff so if it hit the ground on accident, the metallic clang against the stone floor would be quieted. She had to control her breathing so it didn't come out as loud as it usually would.

She looked over her shoulder, only to see an Armada marine walk out one of the rooms to start his shift. Sestiva, knowing that marines were more powerful than musketeers, cast Soulreaver in the marine's direction, but it failed, leaving Sestiva with a shocked expression. She grabbed Helen's wrist and ran around the corner so they wouldn't be spotted.

"Sestiva exactly _what_ are you _doing?!" _Helen whispered, trying not to panic and Sestiva's sudden action. Sestiva shook her head, telling her not to talk.

"Marine just around the corner. I tried casting a spell in his direction, but it failed. He's just around the corner. If you can just get a blow to the back of his neck or his head, it will take him out. Can you do that?" Sestiva whispered back, peering around the corner, seeing the marine approaching.

Helen simply nodded in response, and moved Sestiva out of the way, sticking the barrel of her rifle out of the corner.

Thankfully, the soldier turned around, going away from them. She took aim and fired, hitting the soldier in the back of the head. He collapsed. Helen dragged him into a different room and closed the door.

"Let's go." Helen said, a little louder now that there were no soldiers around and they continued down the hallway. All they had to do now was destroy the fortress itself.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! See you all next update!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	52. Chapter 52

**52: Time Travel**

Sestiva stared at the ceiling of her bedroom, tracing the patterns Helen had once carved in into it with her eyes. She remembered Helen saying that her ceiling looked so boring and if she ever lay on her bed and stared up she would have something to do instead of looking at nothing.

Sestiva's thoughts went back to the times _before_ Helen had carved them in.

She remembered a day in which Skull Island had been invaded seven years ago. For decades, pirates had kept cutthroats and troggies contained on Skull Mountain, but they had started to grow restless. They revolted against the pirates and by the thousands, crossed the long bridge connecting Skull Mountain to Skull Island and swarmed Skull Island by the thousands, recklessly running through Avery's Court and through the town. Large ships with black sails sailed overhead firing canons into the sandy ground.

People watched from their windows and soon realized that there was a gear printed on the sails. The Armada. Marines were sent down from the ships, the ships going back into the air for another volley of canon fire. The marines stormed into homes, bringing the people living in them out and executing them in front of _all_ the cutthroats, troggies, and people who were watching from their windows. Sestiva and Helen watched with horror as the man living three houses down was executed. All the creatures below began to cheer.

"Sestiva…they're coming…for us soon. We need to hide…now!" Helen panicked, searching all over their house for someplace to hide. Sestiva remained by the window, paralyzed from the shock of what she was seeing. Helen tried to pry her younger sister away from the window, but to no avail. "Sestiva…hide under your bed, I can see them coming this way! GO!"

Sestiva did as he sister said and slid under her bed, making as little noise as possible. She could hear the front door open as the soldiers searched the house for people. She heard them come up the stairs and go into Helen's room, only to come back out and close the door. They came closer, and Sestiva's breathing quickened. She shrank back farther under the bed, ending up in the corner of the room where she couldn't be seen at all. Her door opened and the marines came in, searching through her things.

She watched as her room was practically torn apart, searching through every drawer, every cabinet, and every closet. When they left, she heard them slam the front door. She crawled out from beneath her bed, and then ran to Helen's room, whose room looked worse than hers.

"Helen? Helen are you still here?" Sestiva asked, worried that she'd been taken away.

"I'm right here. The Armada seems to have left Skull Island entirely. I checked the window and there's no sign of them." Helen replied, giving Sestiva a reassuring smile.

Sestiva felt as if she experienced the whole thing all over again. She could remember _every_ detail of it.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :) See you all next update!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	53. Chapter 53

**53: Locked**

Presidos Primus was running along Cadiz's second floor, carrying a message from the first on a piece of parchment. He went to every room, and every soldier, alerting them of a certain purple substance on the growing rather slowly on the first floor and that it was unable to be identified, which meant that it was a severe threat to the Armada.

The message spread like wildfire. The message reached Kane in a matter of minutes. The soldiers locked down Cadiz to the very last door, sealing away important documents, past battle reports, and the docks two thick metal gates, came down and completely blocked off any way of entry.

Cadiz was in a state of panic, and Presidos Primus was trying his best to get the lockdown done faster. According to the messenger from the first floor after they locked the whole place down that whatever was growing down there, had breached through the thick gates and had grown to the stairs that led to the second floor.

The Armada was told to stay somewhere in a locked room so that the substance wouldn't get to them, but by the time he reached the first room in his sight, he was locked out.

"Let me in!" He said through the door, pounding on it with his fist.

"We can't. By the time we let you in, Primus, the substance will probably already gotten to us. Ensure your own safety and go to the room farthest away from here. Go to the top floor, the massagers are waiting aren't they?" An Armada soldier spoke back.

He _ran_. He ran as fast as his light frame allowed him to. He skidded to a stop at the end of the hall and opened the door, which thankfully, wasn't locked. He opened the door, ran in, and shut it, searching for any others in the room with him.

There were three others in the same room as him.

A faint purple started to protrude through the floor. The four soldiers backed up so that they weren't anywhere near it. It grew into a crystal, a big one. It blocked the door and the soldiers now had no chance of escaping. They were most likely going to die. Even _if_ they survived, where would they go? They had no other door, and the only one was blocked off.

The crystal started branching off, growing more crystals and becoming bigger by the second. It got to the point where one of the soldiers was impaled by one of them.

_Slowly_ the messenger said. Primus knew now that he was trying not to cause panic. Primus looked around the room again. He was cornered. The crystal grew on either side of him. He used a nearby marine's shield to keep the crystals from touching him, but through the crystal he could see that he was the only one left, the others were what looked like to be either impaled or crushed.

He could only hope that he would still be alive by the time the crystals went away, but he could also feel his weight shift to his side as he felt all of Cadiz tilt to the side. Cadiz was falling, and he was falling with it.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review if you can! It will help me with my writing so any sort of criticism is greatly appreciated. :)**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	54. Chapter 54

**54: Treasure Map**

"Helen, I'm telling you, the shortest way to Valencia is through Mooshu! I don't believe you! All you're going to do is delay this trip further by taking the longer route. We can get to Valencia in less than a day if we go through there then Monquista!" Sestiva whined, trying to persuade Helen to take the route _she_ was planning on taking, only Helen was being stubborn and chose to take the _safer_ route.

"It's not _safe!_" Helen shouted, shooting Sestiva a harsh glare. "You _obviously_ don't understand what's out there! Creatures in Mooshu are far stronger than you think! Just because it's shorter doesn't mean it's safe, you know!"

Sestiva rolled her eyes. Sure Mooshu was dangerous, but there would be far less enemies that they might end up encountering on their trip. Taking the route through Monquista and Avernus Skyway wasn't entirely the safest route. The longer route would bring more chances of attack than passing through Port Regal and Mooshu.

Sestiva only agreed to take Helen's route because Helen was steering the ship. If Helen decided to take Sestiva's planned route, then while she's sleeping, she could turn the ship right around.

_This is the whole reason why I wanted to travel alone. Now because Helen's here, I'm restricted. I shouldn't have let her come. I'm being held back._

Sestiva stomped back to her cabin, slamming the door shut and locking it. She splayed her maps out onto her desk in the far corner of the room. A single candle burned at the edge of the desk, illuminating the maps just enough.

She scribbled out her route and marked in Helen's. The stairs outside her cabin creaked as Helen came down the stairs. The ship came to a halt, which meant that Helen was going to sleep.

Sestiva poked her head out her door, and watched Helen go into her room. She slipped out and heaved up the ship's anchors. She could feel she ship starting to move forwards. She went up to the main deck and the stairs to the ship's wheel.

Although she's never steered a ship, she's watched Helen plenty of times and thought that she could handle it just fine. Helen was a heavy sleeper, so she wouldn't feel the ship turn around.

Sestiva slowly turned the wheel to the left, the ship sluggishly turning with it. Since the ship was in a windlane, she could let it go on its own for a while and Port Regal was about an hour away. She leaned on the rail and let the night wind flow through her thick, red hair.

It was finally going her way. Helen always treated her like she was a lower being, probably because she was younger and Helen thought that she was extremely stubborn. Why couldn't it always be this way. She had to become more…assertive. It was her trip to Valencia and she never asked Helen to come. Helen forced her to let her come. She wasn't letting Helen come on another trip ever again.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :)**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	55. Chapter 55

**55: Lost**

Sestiva looked up and down the map that she had tried to hold down on the main deck with some heavy items like small boxes with flower pots in them. She stood right beside Helen, who was looking down at her every now and then, just to see if they were still on course. Helen _was_ one to forget things really easily.

Her eyes darted up and down the map, trying to find out where they were. Sure the windlanes were bright orange and other bright colors on the large map, but she just couldn't see where they were. She stood up from her crouching position next to Helen and looked at the skyway around her. Everything looked the exact _same_. Land masses to the left of them, Armada and Monquistan ships to the right. She spoke up.

"Helen. Where are we?" Sestiva asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion, gesturing to the map to signify that she had absolutely no idea where they were.

"We're approaching the storm gate in the direction of Valencia. You'll see it. We'll be there in a few hours." Helen explained, trying her best to not confuse her little sister even more than she actually was, considering that happened often.

"I just can't find our current location on the map. Everything here looks the same. Just land mass and ships everywhere."

Helen's eyes too scanned the map. She found the storm gate they were heading for, the farthest one away and tracked the windlane printed in orange.

Sestiva could see Helen's gaze move slowly down the windlane on the map and down towards the general area they were in.

"Found it! Right here!" Helen exclaimed, placing her finger right in the middle of the windlane. "The city that we're passing right here…is to the left of us, as it is too on the map. When you see the next city coming up, we'll almost be at the stormgate, but when you see the watchtower as marked here as a barrier between another skyway, the stormgate will be to the right."

"I see now. So a time estimate of around four to five hours until we get to the stormgate then?"

"It might take longer actually. There's a stop I want to make at the next city to get some new cannons on our ship and get some more ammunition and gunpowder. We're running pretty low."

"We can do that in Valencia, can't we?"

"No, we can't Sestiva. It's been taken over by the Armada, remember? If we even _try_ and do something like that, we'll get caught and sent in as prisoners once they think we're a threat."

"And _how_ do you know all this, exactly? Did you just _read_ a book on the Armada or something?"

"Back on Skull Island, one of the few survivors from Valencia told me everything they knew about the Armada. The best way to not get caught, he said, was to do everything _outside_ Valencia first, and then you'll be prepared enough to fight. We just need to be careful so that _nothing_ happens between us and the Armada until we invade Cadiz."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review if you can! It will help me become a better writer!**

**See you all next update,**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	56. Chapter 56

**46: Help!**

Helen swore she could hear her sister call for help. She could hear her name being called several times following the word "help". Did someone sneak onto their ship while they weren't there? Helen stared out her window in her cabin, searching for ships that were near. Did they get attacked and Sestiva was fighting up there alone?

Helen shot up from her current sitting position and ran up the stairs and onto the main deck. Sure enough, there was her younger sister, fighting off some bandits that swung by on a passing skiff.

The bandits dodged every attack she attempted to land on them. It was clear that they were extremely well trained fighters. The only problem with them was that didn't pay attention to their surroundings and didn't notice Helen coming up from the stairs. Before she reached the top, she got laid down on her stomach and took her rifle off of her back. She adjusted the parts and aimed for one of the bandit's throat, waiting for just the right moment.

It was going to take longer than she thought it would. They were simply too fast. Too fast for even both of them to take. She moved the rifle to the right, so that when the bandit moves she'll hit him, but the shot may not hit where she wanted. It wasn't like she had a choice, so she decided not to care. At what she felt like was the right time, she pulled the trigger, the charge hitting one of the bandits directly in the side.

The bandit screeched in pain as he flew backwards and landed on the stairs, only to come tumbling back down. The other two bandits looked over at their friend in concern, distracted, yet another weakness showing. Sestiva took the opportunity of running through one of the other two left with the serrated blade on the end of her staff. She pulled out the staff, leaving a gaping hole in the bandit's body, letting him fall to the floor, unmoving, blood starting to pool around it.

The remaining one who hadn't been hurt yet, stared at the corpse in pure shock, before getting a charge blown into his head. The remaining one that rolled down the stairs struggled to his feet and prepared himself to fight.

Sestiva charged.

She swept her staff downwards, making the bandit think that she was going to pull it up to strike his chest. Sestiva kept it lowered and knocked him off his feet.

He could feel his legs be swept up from underneath him as he fell forwards, landing face first onto the wooden deck.

Sestiva pointed her blade downwards, then jumping up and bringing the medium sized blade down through his back, killing him. She disposed of the three bodies over the side of the ship and turned to thank Helen for her help, but Helen had already, once again disappeared down the stairs and back into her cabin. She couldn't have done it without her.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! It helps me with my writing so criticism of any sort is greatly appreciated! :D**

**See you all next update!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	57. Chapter 57

**57: Twenty-Four Hours**

The Armada soldiers boarded their ships and set off on their search for their escaped intruders. Fleets upon fleets of ships clogged the windlanes so that they could see from all angles, every other ship facing forwards so that if the intruders managed to escape they would be able to see it. The remaining fleets were assigned with direct orders from Kane to search every island. Half the crew would be watching and searching from above the island and the other half would be searching on foot.

Having a clear advantage over the two pirates would simply make it impossible for them to escape. Even _if_ they managed to escape off their island, they were surrounded. Behind them, would be Cadiz while all other sides would be covered by the Armada's fleets.

Death was _certain_.

The moment they see a ship appear in the skyway, they would shoot it down. Then the ship would sink to the bottom of the spiral and the threat would be eliminated. To the Armada, this was the simplest way possible. Any more complicated and it would have to come to slaughtering every living thing in Valencia.

But what if the island that they were on was not exactly…_seen?_ If the Armada didn't even know it existed, even though they were highly intelligent in locating _almost_ everything in Valencia.

It seemed that the Armada was simply underestimating the pirates.

Down on an undetected island, Sestiva and Helen watched as the Armada ships crowded the windlane, alternating directions. They knew they'd never make it out like this. Helen felt that they made sure it would be _impossible_ for them to get out alive. One wrong move and they'll be shot.

Sestiva cursed under her breath as they became surrounded, shattering all hopes of escape she had left, and destroyed all her plans of escape. She wished she could outsmart them, but she _knew_ that it would be impossible.

Helen, after a while of observing the Armada, she found a major flaw in their plans.

"Seeing that the Armada is just starting to put up defenses _now_…" Helen stated, eyes still on the ships, watching their every movement. "…isn't it a bit _late?_ I mean, we've been here for almost, if I calculated correctly, an estimated twenty-four hours. I know that the Armada is _very_ intelligent, but they acted a day after we left. It's a major flaw of their plan to kill or capture us. Don't you think the same thing too, Sestiva?"

"Why should _I _care about the _stupid_ Armada and their flaws when all I have to do is focus on bringing an end to it? Unlike you, I'm not constantly observing them, seeing every little flaw in their plans." Sestiva snapped back, sending Helen a glare. "Now if you would please go back to minding your own business I'm trying to figure out a plan."

"Because, Sestiva, if _you_ want to defeat the Armada, it's _your_ job to know their weaknesses! I can promise you, since I've done it before, that your strength will increase from knowing their weaknesses."

"What will _that_ help with? We're _already surrounded!"_

"Just give them time. Lots of time. If I remember, the Armada goes back to the fortress at night, but only a few ships remain to patrol. We can't just suddenly leave or they'll notice. We leave in another twenty-four hours. "

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review  
**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	58. Chapter 58

**58: Abandon Ship**

A few miles from Beachhead, the war raged on, allowing the citizens of Marleybone to listen and fall asleep to the sound of cannon fire and wood cracking, tearing into ships. The factory workers didn't get much sleep either, since they constantly had to work and keep the factories up and running extremely early in the morning to make supplies against what seemed to be the never ending war.

Meanwhile, on one of the Marleybone's ships, they were having an all out battle on deck. The soldiers would throw punches and shoot charges at the Armada, but they would be too fast. There was blood _everywhere._

One certain soldier in particular hid below decks, as he didn't want to end up as a bloody corpse on the wooden decks of their own ship. Little did he know though, since the anchors were down, and everybody else on the ship was up fighting, he could be of some use without having to go onto the deck.

The battle had started out as a nautical fight and then the Armada came really close and put down their gangplanks, signifying to the dogs that they were going to have to fight with what weapons they had, which also meant some will have to use their bare fists.

He had locked himself in his cabin, just so the Armada couldn't come in and take him.

He heard his crew's cries for help, but would fall to the deck just moments later, hearing the body hit the ceiling with a thud. The sounds echoed throughout the ship.

But what if….he can blast the ship away? He could use the cannons and blast holes into the Armada ship so that it sinks and then more soldiers can't come onto the deck. Then no one will have to die during this _one_ battle.

He went over to his cabin door, and peeked out from a little crack after opening his door a little bit. There was nothing there. He silently crept out of his cabin and raced down the hallway towards the gun bay. When he reached the cannons, he found one that was pointed directly at the center of the Armada ship across from them. He loaded the cannon, taking all his effort just to put in the cannonball and shove it down to the back. He wasn't one of the strongest in his crew, but he could shoot really well.

He lit the fuse and jumped back so that the canon didn't run him over and kill him under its weight. The cannon fired and rolled backwards in recoil. He looked out the cannon's slot in the ship to see the massive hole it blew in the side of the ship.

"Abandon ship!" the Armada captain shouted, most of the remaining crew, which was about another five soldiers jumped onto the Marlybone ship and joined the fight along with the captain himself.

The soldier that blew the giant hole in the ship watched as the Armada ship fell do the bottomless pit of the spiral and then rushed to the main deck to join the fight.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! **

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	59. Chapter 59

**59: Paralyzed**

Helen raced down the brass hallway, feet landing lightly on the ground so the Armada wouldn't notice a thing. She froze and practically slammed herself against the wall across from her as a patrolling marksman headed in her direction. She calmed and quieted her breathing. He was just around the corner. This was it. She was surely going to get caught now.

Just as the soldier came about two feet from her position and stopped. Helen could practically feel her heart pounding as her eyes tracked the soldier from around the corner.

The marksman turned around, and headed back down the hall to continue monitoring his assigned area. Helen bolted up the nearest stairwell and shoved her body into a small space that barely gave her enough breathing room. Her eyes went wide as more soldiers ran past her.

"There has been an intruder! Find it and bring it here." An officer ordered, earning a salute from his squadron members. They ran back down the other way, leaving Helen paralyzed from pure fear of being caught.

She poked her head out from her little spot in the wall, looking left and right for now more alert soldiers. She pried herself from her small space and tumbled down onto the floor, but quickly picked herself up. Sestiva was still on the first floor, and it worried her to know the possibilities of what could possibly happen to her.

Helen went back down the staircase and down the hallway she just went down. There was now a soldier patrolling the one she was it.

That was just _great._

Helen snuck up from behind and tackled him to the ground, wrestling his rifle from his hands and throwing it _under_ the staircase so he couldn't get to it. He still put up a fight. He tried to shove her off, but to no avail. He struggled underneath her weight, but she took out her small knife and stabbed repeatedly into his chest plate, scratching the metal underneath the uniform. She brought more and more force down upon the knife, finally getting a small cut in the tough metal. She carved a line right down the middle and tore it open with her bare hands, easily bending it back to expose the gears that lay underneath. Some of the gears were turning with small strips of leather attached to it to keep them turning.

She sawed it off with the knife and put the small knife away. She took her rifle and took off the bayonet, which was long enough to pierce through the marksman's small frame. She plunged it in between a set of gears that were turning rapidly and it clacked against the metal as if it was attempt to remove the long, narrow blade. Helen pressed harder.

Soon the gears stopped turning. Helen remained where she was for a few minutes, just to be sure that the marksman was _truly_ dead. She could never be certain. She stood up and went to look for her sister, who was in a brass cell with a musketeer watching over her. Helen knew what to do. She _attacked_.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	60. Chapter 60

**60: Criminal**

_Where did she go? I just saw her a minute ago and now she just vanished._

Helen wondered through Skull Island, looking around for her sister, who wasn't home that morning. Had she gone out for early training? No. Helen knew that Sestiva wasn't that kind of person. The last place she would search would be the cave that Sestiva always practiced in. She knew the _last_ thing that Sestiva would even _think_ of doing, would be to practice.

Normally, Sestiva would be somewhere near all the shops. She checked every corner, inside every shop. She couldn't find Sestiva anywhere.

When she asked around, no one had seen her. Now, and only now, could she check her practice cave. Helen zoomed up the slope, pushing aside the vines as she ran into the cave. The possibilities of what could've happened if she was in there overnight were endless. What if there was a raid on Skull Island? This place wouldn't be exactly what she would call _safe_.

Helen stopped walking in the middle of the room. She turned around to get a good look at her surroundings. Sure enough, there was Sestiva, crouched in the corner, still sleeping. Her staff was still being limply held in her right hand.

Helen noticed that her hands were bandaged and slowly picked up her left hand to get a closer look. Sestiva's eyes shot open and she quickly stood up, grip tightening on her staff, and ready to attack with a fierce look in her eyes. Without realizing who it was, began attacking, jabbing and slashing with her staff.

"Sestiva! It's just me, Helen!" Helen screeched, the staff coming dangerously close to her face. Sestiva stopped, and turned her staff upright, allowing Helen to peel herself from the wall.

"What happened to your hands, Sestiva?" Helen asked, scratching her head.

"I burnt them while I was making potions. The one I made had a small inferno inside of it."

"Wow, that's really advanced, Sestiva! I thought you were only allowed to make basic potions."

"That's in class, but outside I can do anything. I simply combined potions."

"I don't think combining basic potions can do that though. How'd you do it."

"I combined some of Vadim—"

"You _stole_ potions from Vadima?!"

"Y—no. I mean…yes?"

"Why? You know you could be considered a criminal for that! If you knew, then why did you do it?"

"I needed something I could combine my potions with. That's all."

"So you _stole them from her?"_

"In the middle of the night, yes."

"You can't tell _anyone_, you understand, Sestiva? If I find a _single _person who _knows_, I'm going to personally lock you up in that cave."

"I understand, Helen. You can calm down now."

"Just don't do it again or you're _dead_."

Sestiva walked out of the cave, shuffling her feet in the soft sand. Was Vadima going to find out? She had to hide this somehow. Sestiva was _positive_ that she would need Helen's help with it.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**See you all next update!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	61. Chapter 61

**61: Desert**

Helen stopped the ship next to some mountains in Haunted Skyway. It was the _best_ idea in her opinion, in order to not get spotted by the Armada. There had been rumors that the Armada had flooded the area, due to the amount of attempts of invading Cadiz. Around fifty fleets of ships were sent from all parts of the spiral to protect the Elites. The only problem was, that they would shoot down any ship that they saw that was not their own for fear of further risk of their commanders.

It was only a matter of time before the Armada found Helen's ship too. Sestiva and Helen both hopped off the ship. Helen bottled up the ship.

"We're going _over _the mountains. It's the safest way. Otherwise, the ground troops will know we're here and kill us." Helen explained, clearing it up for Sestiva, who had no idea what was going on. "They have increased their forces to keep the Elites safe since there has been increasing attacks at Cadiz. This means that we have to be careful. No sudden noises. "

Sestiva simply nodded her head, listening to every word her older sister said. They began to climb over the mountains, Helen following closely behind just in case there were enemies approaching from behind on their patrol routes.

"Sestiva. Go down the other side of the mountain. There should be a desert there according to the map." Helen instructed.

Sestiva nodded in response, completely silent, just like Helen told her to be.

The drop to the bottom of the mountain, and where the mountain met the desert, was pretty steep. Both sisters knew that they could use the steep slope as an easy advantage for a quick getaway. It wasn't like they were going to need one considering that they had not been seen.

Just to make sure, Helen gestured for Sestiva to slide down the bare mountain of weathered down stone, making it smooth. Sestiva sat down at the side and slid, Helen following shortly after, then tumbling into the sand below them.

While in the process of standing up from the sand, Helen heard a loud shuffling of sand that wasn't coming from them.

Almost as if it was an instinct for the musketeer, her rifle came off her shoulder and aimed at the source of the sound. Sestiva did the same with her staff and stood back to back with Helen. They quieted their breathing and closed their eyes, simply listening.

What could possibly be worse than being nearly stranded in the desert?

The shuffling came again, from Helen's side. Their eyes snapped open, Helen fired, alerting Sestiva, who swung around, casting a spell to drive a massive hole through the rather large hill of sand in front of them. The sand fell back down to the ground, giving her a glimpse of the attacker.

Sestiva squinted at the figure in the distance, trying to make out what it was. Unfortunately, it was too dark and she could barely see anything among the sand particles that were still settling onto the ground.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	62. Chapter 62

**62: Fortune**

Sestiva had _no_ idea that the Plundered Tunnels would be this heavily guarded. Tons of Armada soldiers were patrolling around each corner. She had to sneak behind a wall of fallen stones in order not to be spotted. She musketeers and marines would turn their head towards her direction every once in a while after she moved to another hiding place.

Dozens of Armada clockworks marched out of one particular area in the Plundered Tunnels, and Sestiva knew _exactly _why. Optimus Caerulus. The commander of all the clockworks in the area, right in the middle of the tunnels. There was no possible way that Sestiva could make it around them without being spotted, due to their extremely sharp senses.

Darting behind a stone pillar, the witchdoctor watched as a soldier walked past on the other side, curiously looking around the column. A bit more closer and she could've been caught. It was only a matter of time before it actually happens anyway.

Fortunately, she was able to hide behind a giant golden disk, that looked like it hasn't moved in centuries due to the amount of dust covering it when she hid.

A hole about the size of her head was in the middle of the disk, so she could see if any clockwork could be approaching.

The hole was also able to fit the blade of her staff through, which gave her the ability to kill Optimus Caerulus if she wanted to.

_It's smart, but I don't want to risk it. They'll see where the beam of light comes from and then come and attack me. It's way too risky. It could be a possibility if I simply made a bright flash, which gives me a few seconds to escape. _

Sestiva began her spell in the cramped space, twirling her staff over and over and then putting the bladed end through the hole in the center. Adjusting the blade to aim at Caerulus, since she knew that without the commander, there would be mass confusion amongst the soldiers themselves.

She cast the spell.

Caerulus, who was turned the other way, was hit directly in the back by the beam of light. He turned around sharply, in Sestiva's direction. She was no longer in her hiding spot, but dashing around behind Caerulus while he was distracted. With all the arm strength she had she plunged the blade into his back, coming out through his chestplate. She pulled it back out, letting him fall to the ground.

Knowing that Caerulus was heavily guarded, could see the last unit march out of the room, turning around the corner. They didn't see Caerulus' death. Good. Now all Sestiva had left to do was escape. It was going to be easy with no guards around. Grinning, she snuck out of the room, making her way back to the docks of the Gold Mine.

_That was easier than I thought it was going to be. That would be the first high ranking officer that I've taken down! I can't wait to deal with the even higher ranks!_

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	63. Chapter 63

**63: Apocalypse**

Families were huddled together on Skull Mountain, more people running across the bridge from Skull Island to flee from the fast growing purple crystals. The gate had already been closed off, but people kept crossing, climbing over the rather small gate.

Messages came in from other islands saying that they were sending their people out on ships to keep them away from the islands since they were having the same problem. The people taking shelter on Skull Mountain complained they had no docks, but most didn't care as they unbottled their ships and brought as many people as they could on board, then taking off into the skyway.

Joining the big group of the ships in the skyway, some people put their gangplanks across the ships, asking if they could borrow any supplies they had. Soon, all the ships were linked together, and it was like a whole other island.

"Does anyone know where these crystals started growing?" a man asked, but the truth was, nobody knew. It was highly unlikely that it started in Skull Island, because if it was somehow _created_, they wouldn't start attacking Skull Island like that.

It _must_ have been the Armada. There was no other enemy out there that would be smart enough to create such a weapon. A biological weapon maybe.

"IT WAS THE ARMADA!" someone shouted, gaining the attention of mostly everyone. "THEY'RE THE ONLY ONES WHO COULD CREATE SOMETHING LIKE THIS! IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT! WHO ELSE WOULD'VE DONE IT BUT THEM! WHO ELSE WOULD'VE ATTACKED US WHILE OUR GUARD WAS DOWN!"

A roar sounded through the ship cluster. People went back about their business, trading and the occasional person moving into the ship with them since they didn't have one of their own.

The people _thought_ they had escaped from the crystals, but one ship wasn't so fortunate, crystals growing underneath it, where the people couldn't see. It continued to spread, but slowly. It would only be a matter of time before all of the people on board would be killed by the pathogen itself.

They continued to celebrate, as if figuring out who made Pathogen would win the war without fighting or doing anything even. As hours went by, it claimed _one_ victim in their cabin, which was enough to make it seem _unnoticed_. No one knew how it got to Skull Island in the first place, which meant that they basically had no chance of finding some sort of _cure_.

Unless some ships decided to depart at the very moment, it will be the end of them. It could even result in an apocalypse. They had _no_ idea that this was also happening in the other worlds too, crystals causing all the people to evacuate the lands and flee to the skyways.

Over the side of some of the ships, with people still hiding on Skull Mountain, they cut off the bridge connecting them to Skull Island. It could be the end of them. All of them. And no one would know.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	64. Chapter 64

**64: Dancing**

Sestiva knew that at one point, one way or another, she would have to remove all evidence that she was in Valencia. She would have to set fire to the house Helen had worked so hard on. It was really disappointing to her that she would have nothing left on that island, with an exception of the cave that she stored all her potions in. All the bottles of Pathogen. She just couldn't risk bringing them all along with her, in fear that while they were sailing, or fighting, the bottles could possibly break, leaving them highly likely to die within the day.

She told Helen to get the large boxes of gunpowder off the ship and dump it all into the house, which would make it burn even faster. Sestiva had already taken a spare fuse, which was put into a coil. She led it into the house, where Helen was still dumping all the gunpowder, standing ankle deep in it.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Sestiva?" Helen asked, aware that Sestiva was hesitant about the whole thing, unprepared to see something they worked so hard on _burn_. "You're hesitating."

"It's for the best, Helen." Sestiva said, helping her with dumping the gunpowder carrying the boxes out. "I may be hesitant, but I know I have to do it. For the sake of our lives, we _have_ to. It's probably the only way. "

"If you say so. If you think its right, then let's do it."

They walked out of the house, following the fuse that Sestiva put down to a small open field, far enough away for them to be safe from the fire, since the house will be engulfed by an enormous inferno.

Sestiva bent down once they were at the end, and lit the fuse, taking a few more steps back, just in case embers and glass went flying.

She watched as the fuse traveled all the way to the house, where it disappeared. Through one of the windows, Sestiva could see the fire starting up, spreading extremely quickly. The glass windows started shattering as the fire grew bigger and bigger.

The flames danced in the wind as the house became more and more engulfed in the flames. Sestiva and Helen continued to back up as the fire continued to spread.

"So much for living on an _undetected island._" Helen said, staring at the flaming house. "The fire's going to give this location away, we have to leave before it gets discovered by anyone else."

"We still have the cave." Sestiva stated, pointing towards the cave. "It has plenty of room in the back, even after all those weapons and potions we put in there. The main room will be our practice area and the back will be where we _live. _We don't necessarily have to leave if we live in there. It's not like anything will change if we stay anyways, right?"

"I guess you're right. We _could_, but I'm not so happy with the change. I was already loading the ship to go somewhere else."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SammanthaHawkins**


	65. Chapter 65

**65: City Lights**

Sestiva and Helen sailed through the empty space in between worlds, waiting to pass through the storm gate to Marlybone. It was dead silent, like always, some sort of creature lurking in the middle by the hundreds. The gentle swaying of the ship was enough to put Sestiva to sleep, but for the sake of being alert for enemy ships, she forced herself to stay awake.

Helen could feel the slight breeze getting stronger by the second, meaning that they were coming close to the stormgate. The ship took a sharp incline due to the upwards motion of the air current, moving them into the windlane.

The world was dark, but they could still see due to the light of the moon and the _bright pink_ windlane. It was going to be a good time just to sail around since they had nothing else to do. Plus, with the war going on with the Armada, the docks were closed at night. There had been reports of some citizens working with the Armada and put explosives in their food and weapon shipments, which detonated once they opened it, being the cause of many casualties in the factory.

Most of the Marleybonians were already busy working or fighting, so the numbers of workers in the factories have been slowly decreasing. No one else was willing to work and they were starting to run out of supplies because the rate of production was extremely slow.

Helen had just found out a few hours ago while they were sailing in between worlds from a messenger ship that was passing by, telling her that all ships that come to Marleybone will have to wait until morning to delivering the shipments or, if they didn't have shipments, they will have to spend the night in the windlanes, just in case if a ship seems suspicious.

From where Sestiva and Helen were in the windlane, in front of the Isle of Dogs, they could see the city lights illuminating the space around it in the darkness. It looked like a beacon in the middle of nothingness.

"It's beautiful isn't it, Sestiva?" Helen asked, smiling at the sight.

"_You _can say that." Sestiva replied coldly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Unless you can get rid of all the noise Beachhead's making, I doubt I can consider it, _beautiful_."

"When will you _ever_ learn, Sestiva? I told you before, don't listen, just look. What do you think of it? The sight of the city lights, what do you think? It doesn't have to copy _my_ opinion either. Just say whatever you think is on your mind."

"I _guess_ I can call it beautiful without this place being a _war zone_. I think that _if_ we _could_ get into the city right now, we can walk around and explore, but since they've had problems with their trading system, I think it's best to not be shot down anytime soon. But yes, I _do_ think that it's beautiful."

* * *

**Sestiva needs to calm down. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	66. Chapter 66

**66: Skyline**

The ship sailed through the green skyways of Valencia, simply having the windlane guide them around to pass time. Sestiva, was trying to find a route into Cadiz without going through the main entrance, which would most likely be an instant capture for the Armada. She had seen over five entrances on the side, but she could not see _one_ where it wasn't guarded.

Helen's ship had still not made it all the way around Cadiz _once_. There had been five entrances in the last quarter of Cadiz, but there could be an unguarded back entrance that's just as big as the one in the front, providing a shortcut through the large fortress and a safety for Armada ships with shipments from other fortresses and battles, under the cover of the passageway. The passage way was tall enough for a galleon to pass through, assuming that the _one_ galleon that they saw pass through the passageway only once, was the ship that was either used by Rooke or Kane himself.

Sestiva paced around the deck, examining her nails out of pure boredom. She stopped to lean against the mast, every now and then looking up at Helen to check and see if she saw anything, but each and every time Helen just shook her head.

"Finding an entrance here isn't going to be easy, Sestiva." Helen explained, her eyes still focused on the horizon. "Cadiz is heavily guarded since Kane's here and I don't think that they're expecting..._pirates_ to come in with supplies. It's only natural for them to guard their supreme leader. Just be patient Sestiva, we'll get into Cadiz sooner or later."

Sestiva, looked out through the corner of her eye at Cadiz. Cadiz was such a large fortress, but when it came to getting inside, Sestiva just _gave up_. She wasn't even listening to what Helen had to say about Cadiz being heavily guarded and such. She just blankly stared at Cadiz in front of her as the ship smoothly glided past it, watching every gear turn and twist. She tried to process if there was another way in besides those entrances on the very bottom of it.

_Why isn't there any other way?! There's got to be someplace where Kane could escape if Cadiz was under attack! There has to! Why must the Armada make things so difficult? Why can't things just be easy for once? I know this is Cadiz, but still, why can't anything in my life be easy?_

She found it. The back entrance. Running up to the side of the main deck, she squinted to get a better look, easily finding the four guards that stood by, ready to fire at any moment, always alert.

"Not this entrance either, there's four guards." Sestiva said, disgust filling her voice. "There's still half of Cadiz left to sail around, I'll keep looking."

"Sestiva, those are four guards we can easily take out. Plus, look how far apart the back area is to the other two on either side of it, that's got to be at _least_ two-hundred feet."

"I guess you're right, let's stay here till morning."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a review! :)**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	67. Chapter 67

**67: Flying**

Pirates often said that ships give off a _free_ feeling, like the ship wasn't flying, but the person sailing it was. Sestiva, being restricted by Helen, wasn't really allowed to feel like she was flying, only allowed to sit in her cave and practice spells and whatnot.

"Helen, unless you can give me a reason as to why I can't get a ship and experience this _feeling_ that all the pirates are talking about, I'm going out and getting one for myself." Sestiva growled, clenching her fists and making eye contact with Helen in a threatening glare.

"It's simply too dangerous, Sestiva." Helen said, blankly staring back at her younger sister. "If you only want to know about this _feeling_, then it's not worth it. I'm sorry, Sestiva, but I'm not spending the gold just for you to do one thing. Plus, you don't even know how to sail. What are you going to do with a ship that can't sail because its captain doesn't know how?"

Sestiva rolled her eyes.

"I've seen other pirates do it _millions_ of times, I'll be _fine_. You just have to trust me!"

"I still can't guarantee that you can sail. You haven't had the proper training! Do you even know how to get up the mast to let the sails themselves down? I don't think so!"

"You don't know a _thing_ about sailing, _Helen._ All you know is how to scold me on how I don't know how to sail when you _clearly_ don't know how to sail either. I bet you haven't had the proper training just like _me."_

"Actually, I _have_ had the proper training. I just didn't want you to know, since musketeers have to learn how to get up onto the mast and shoot from there without being seen. I haven't told you what most of my training was about, just so that you wouldn't get jealous of what I was doing, but I've heard that all the classes are doing it at one point in time."

"Then _you_ can do the sailing, I can stand on deck and take watch of other ships around us."

"There is _nothing_ to do in the Skyway. Absolutely _nothing_. There's no point in going."

"Yes there is. We can get fighting experience from stronger enemies out there! We can learn new strategies and get experienced with nautical battles so that when we actually have to fight the Armada's ships we'll be ready! It's the best plan in the _Spiral!"_

"You have a point, but the teachers are saying that those without ship experience should _not_ go into the skyway for safety reasons. They don't want young pirates dying out on them."

"But _you_ have sailing experience, and I'm practically a witchdoctor prodigy! What can _possibly_ go wrong while we're out there? Surely not dying, but still! We should go out there _once_. I _really_ want to know what it feels like to fly! You've got to let me _try, _Helen."

"My answer is _no."_

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! **

**-SamanthaHawkins  
**


	68. Chapter 68

**68: Feathers**

Sestiva leaned over the side of the ship, trying to adjust the gangplank so that it would be stable enough to walk on and off when they were unloading. Seeing that Helen was on the other side signaling to her to adjust it to the right, she shifted it slightly, Helen doing the same. Sestiva moved out of the way as Helen came up the gangplank.

"This is good enough." Helen said, smiling, helping Sestiva up from her kneeling position. "We can start unloading the barrels and take them to be refilled with gunpowder. Now remember, we need to do this quickly in order to leave before nightfall. If we leave as quickly as possible then we can make it to Valencia by morning. From here, in Aquila, to Valencia, takes about seven hours. "

Sestiva didn't respond, just did as she was told. She went down below decks, bringing up the barrels one by one, Helen taking them from the main deck to the docks. It was a slow process, but it was working just fine. They had all day since it was still only morning. Arriving in Valencia wasn't the best idea either, considering the high amount of patrols the Armada had out at night. Tons of ships, scattered about the skyway, hiding in some of the darkest places, in the clouds, behind the islands, near Sivella academy. It would be impossible for a ship to go by without being shot at. Reported cases of the Armada shooting down regular trading ships were common, lots of pirates did it, but only a few managed to survive the shootings.

She brought up the last one, taking it down to the docks where Helen was waiting. She wished she was like a bird, with hollow bones and feathers, though she would be fragile, she would be able to do what she wished, flying away at will, soaring above everything at her own speed. If the Armada couldn't see past the layer of clouds in the sky, and below them, then she could simply just fly above the clouds. She couldn't be caught, there was no doubt.

As far as she _knew, _the tip of Cadiz reached up there, so she could just fly there undetected and launch a surprise attack. There were no windows in Cadiz. Even better.

Sestiva trudged along on the stone pathway, thinking about having wings and flight, and then Helen stopped abruptly in front of her. She ran right into her, dropping the net of barrels she tugged behind her. She stumbled backwards, tripping over the barrels in the process, falling and landing on her back.

Helen helped her up, grabbing the net that Sestiva had behind her.

"What were you thinking about?" Helen asked, seeming to be aware as to what Sestiva was doing. "How to destroy the Armada again?"

"No." Sestiva replied, stretching. "I was thinking about what I could do if I had feathered wings. I could practically do anything I want if I had them. I wish I did, but it's impossible, isn't it?"

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and _please_ leave a review! It will help improve my writing, so any sort of criticism is greatly appreciated! :)**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	69. Chapter 69

**69: Underage**

Sestiva wondered through Skull Island's docks, searching for the right ship. Her first lesson as a Witchdoctor had just finished, and she was highly impressed by what Vadima told her she would be able to do when she was older.

Once a month, the younger, beginner pirates, since they wouldn't be able to be sent off to fight the Armada, would be allowed to cross the bridge into Skull Mountain, where they would calm some of the commotion that the Troggies and Cutthroats were causing. Sestiva could only _dream_ of becoming good enough. The youngest pirate to ever go to Skull Mountain was only fifteen years old. She wasn't _impressed_ at all. She was only thirteen, so she had lots of time, but that meant lots and lots of practicing.

_I really don't want to practice, but I must._

_Why?_

_So I can break the record, of course!_

_But why put yourself through the time and effort?_

_I want to do it. _

_Why?_

_To be the youngest pirate who gets sent off to Cadiz, defeats the Armada, and comes back…alive. _

_What makes you think you can? You're weak._

_Weak? Then I shall not be weak. Just watch. I'll prove myself wrong._

Turning around, she headed back in the direction she once came, stooping down to snatch up her staff that was lying a few meters away. She _had_ to, just _had_ to break that record. There was no other way for her to become the_ best_ Witchdoctor in the whole _spiral_.

Narrowing her eyes to keep the wind from blowing sand into her eyes, she trudged forwards, and then broke into a sprint, going as fast as she could just to get to the cave that she practiced in. Shoving the vines covering the entrance to the side, she tumbled to the ground in exhaustion, trying desperately to catch her breath. She coughed and stood up, swaying a little bit. She cast her first ever spell, Ghostwail. Aiming at the wall, she thrust her staff towards the wall's direction.

The spell was a success.

There was only one problem to her spell, at least from what she could tell. Vadima had told her that Ghostwail had the ability to blow walls apart, but hers just barely made a _scratch_. Sestiva groaned, trying the spell again, focusing more and more of her energy into the spell. She thrust the staff forwards again, making a little more impact with a wall, with a large dent and scorch marks now embedded into the stone.

Even though she had only done the spell twice, she thought it was enough for one day, she was already tired from the amount of magic she used. She left the cave, sliding down the steep hill, then running all the way to her home, where Helen was waiting patiently for her.

"Helen! I'm going to break the record!" Sestiva cheered excitedly, waving her hands all around. "I'm going to beat the record of the youngest person to go to Skull Mountain! Even though I'm _only_ thirteen!"

"I wouldn't get too excited, Sestiva." Helen said dully, showing no excitement for her sister's goal. "Reason being that you're _underage_, Sestiva. You _have_ to be at _least_ fourteen to go and you've _only_ just turned _thirteen_. You'll have to wait another year. It's too dangerous for people your age to go there."

"But I can just fake my age."

"I won't allow it."

"Fine, have it your way then. Watch me become the greatest witchdoctor of all time!"

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	70. Chapter 70

**70: Golden Years**

"I'll do it, I _promise_!" Sestiva begged for her sister to consider getting a ship for the two of them if she went and practiced. "I'll practice for as long as you _want_, just please consider the ship."

Helen hesitated. She didn't want to disappoint her little sister, but she _knew_ that Sestiva had a tendency to lie to her, getting her to do practically anything she wanted.

"No, Sestiva. You know that I won't even _think_ about getting a ship." Helen snapped. "You're so annoying sometimes."

"_Please_! I'll do _anything._"

"Anything?"

"Anything. Just please do it, I never said you have to buy it."

"Alright fine. I'll do it as long as you practice your spells at least once every day. I honestly don't care about the ship anyways."

"_If _you didn't care, Helen, you wouldn't be taking the time to come up with that last statement of yours."

Helen rolled her eyes, pushing Sestiva aside before trudging out the door and closed the door behind her, leaving Sestiva alone in the room.

As soon as Helen was gone, Sestiva grabbed her staff from the corner of the room and ran out the door as well, going up to the cave to practice like Helen had told her to do. If it was the only thing that would convince her to buy the ship, she would do it. Well, assuming that Helen wouldn't be there to _enforce_ her practice…then she could just fake it.

_Oh I practiced. Yeah. I've gotten better, just need to work on the accuracy part but technique wise it's getting better. Oh yeah it's getting stronger. I've been practicing just like you said there's no need to worry about me all the time._

Helen was so gullible. She fell for all her tricks. It probably won't last for long. Sestiva was a horrible liar, and it was easy to see through. But for now, these were the days that Sestiva could get away with anything.

Having arrived in her cave after two long minutes of running, she cast a spell or two, focusing on both power and accuracy. Helen would see how much she had improved over the hours. She would be impressed for once. Maybe she wouldn't be impressed because she had higher expectations of her, but she didn't know or care at the moment. Spell after spell was cast, draining almost all of her energy, even though it had only been around twenty minutes.

Sestiva had heard of legends where the most powerful witchdoctors could cast multiple spells at one time. It was her goal too, but she had to wait since she had yet to gain more power over controlling her energy.

Bored, Sestiva headed back to the house, seeing Helen enter the door just moments before she slid herself down the steep hill.

"Did you even practice?" Helen asked suspiciously, just as Sestiva walked through the door. "it's barely been an hour!"

"Believe it or not, I did. I'm not lying I swear!" Sestiva frantically said, which was convincing enough for her to think that she practiced the entire time. Unfortunately, Helen would stop believing her after a while.

These were the days that Sestiva enjoyed. The ones where Helen would believe every single thing that came out of Sestiva's mouth.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	71. Chapter 71

**71: Revenge**

Sestiva already knew from the beginning that invading Beachhead _alone_ wouldn't be easy at all. Helen had already left with the ship they once shared to go check on Skull Island. She _hoped_ that knews of Cadiz had already gotten by Skull Island. Messenger birds were often good at keeping track of major current events, but they weren't always reliable. They rarely went into Valencia. The Armada was always shooting them down, and then Skull Island took the opportunity to send messages _around_ Valencia, not _through Valencia._

Sestiva went below decks and dropped the anchors. It was too early to attack Beachhead. Especially in broad daylight. The soldiers operating the three giant turrets around the base would destroy her ship in an instant.

_I can't do this now. In order to do this alone, I have to get way stronger than this. I should go back to Skull Island as well. _

Raising the anchors once again, she turned the ship around, speeding down the skyway like there was no tomorrow. The stormgate approached fast, traveling from one world to another until she reached Skull Island, only to find it in _flames_. The _Armada _was attacking again, just like they did years ago. Winning with massive numbers and firepower.

Where was Helen?

She jumped off her ship, bottling it as fast as she could to prevent the Armada from burning it. Racing up the dock and into their old house, she found Helen cornered by Armada Marines. Her rifle wasn't doing much good either. Each charge ricocheting off the long, heavy shields.

Helen stayed calm as she whipped out her knife, staying still, and then ramming it into one of the shields, which was powerful enough to go straight through it. She thrust it in a downwards motion, then back up, spitting the shield. Sestiva was going to get revenge for attacking the island for the second time.

The Marine raised his axe, getting ready to strike.

It was almost as if it was an instinct. Sestiva jumped up, a spell readied, a ball of blue light formed at the end.

"DIE!" Sestiva screamed, releasing the spell at its full power. "YOU DON'T DESERVE TO EXIST!"

The spell, shot right through the center or the soldier's back, ripping through him like it was nothing. Helen ducked, the spell continuing to shoot over her head. The light from the spell faded, leaving the soldier with a gaping hole in his back. She could see Helen through it, who was just starting to stand up, brushing off the small metal pieces that had shattered when the soldier was hit.

"Helen, are you okay?" Sestiva asked, stepping over the soldier, the other one seemed to have retreated while she cast the spell. "They didn't hurt you did they?"

"Fortunately, they didn't." Helen sighed. "Thank you. Sometimes, musketeers aren't the _best_ class to go with."

Sestiva grabbed Helen's arm and raced out the door.

"Sestiva where are we going?"

"To destroy the rest of the Armada of course!"

"Sestiva."

"_What_."

"No. You just got here."

"And?"

"And you're crazy, now shut up and kill some Armada soldiers, will you?"

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :)**


	72. Chapter 72

**72: Assassin**

Helen waited for an Armada Officer to pass by. The few dozen that passed were just musketeers, no multiple colored feathers and fancy uniforms to distinguish the officers apart from the regular soldiers. She was standing behind two large crates, which were tall enough for her to just see above. High enough for her to still shoot.

She took her rifle down from the top of the wooden crates and shrunk down against the wall, taking a break after standing there for around three hours. Sestiva _should_ be inside the fortress, taking care of the main sources of ammunition.

Helen sighed, wiping the sweat off her forehead with her sleeve.

_I hope that Sestiva's okay. I told her to be stealthy, but she's quite reckless. I don't know if she's been noticed yet, but I think she has, due to her indescribably high hatred for the Armada. It's almost impossible for her to stay quiet at any mention of them. The first time, it took me hours to calm her down._

It was awfully quiet, as Helen noticed when she was sitting against the wall. No activity of the soldiers…yet. She could hear the shuffling of boots which she calculated to be around twenty-two feet away from her. She stood up, not moving her feet as to cause a disruption of sound, which would give her location away.

Her rifle was loaded and ready to fire before she sat down, the mechanical clink of gears getting closer and closer by the second. Helen stared dead ahead, through the scope of her rifle. Soon the approaching soldier was within sight. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see if she could see the blue-ish tint of an Officer's uniform.

She knew it was an officer. Three different colored feathers on the top of his bicorn, flowing in the wind. Helen put a finger on the trigger, exhaling to stop all movement. As soon as the officer was right in front of her, around fifteen feet in front, she fired, sending the charge right onto the side of his face. A fatal shot for them. It was right where the mask had stopped covering the face and right underneath the white, powdered wig, which exposed the gears in his head.

He fell to the ground with a soft _thud. _

Helen stayed still, listening for other foot soldiers coming through. Silence. Helen pushed the crates out and to the side, leaning her rifle against the wall against the narrow-ish gap. She grabbed the officer, picked him up, carried him over into her small space and placed him down gently behind her, with a pile of many other officers that passed by. Moving the crates back into place in front of her. She took her rifle from against the wall, aiming in one spot continuously, waiting. Hearing shouts and commands from inside the fortress, she knew that Sestiva had showed herself, taking down the soldiers with her own hands. It would make her job a lot easier, but after shooting down five officers in three hours, there was going to be a lot of waiting to do.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and _please_ leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	73. Chapter 73

**73: Holding Hands**

"Sestiva, no come back!" Helen called after Sestiva after she'd bolted out the door. "Slow down! Sestiva!"

Sestiva didn't respond to Helen. She wasn't in the mood, being way too excited for the new ship that Helen had promised her she would get if she somehow managed to impress Vadima, which was _extremely _hard to do. She learned seven spells ahead of the class. The material that she learned would usually be covered in about half the year.

Helen was practically being dragged down to the docks, pulled along by Sestiva. She had only gotten a small skiff, not too expensive, fast, but not to powerful at all. It would take them places, to places besides Skull Island and the main skyways.

_This girl needs to calm down. It's just a ship, no big deal. Why is it so important to her? I really don't understand. It's just a way you can travel around without problems, unless you find other ships out there. Unless….unless she has some sort of way to just get she ship and do nothing with it. That could be it. Knowing her, she has a hatred for the Arma—wait. Does she want to go to…Cadiz….in Valencia? _

Helen snapped out of her thoughts, realizing that they were almost at the docks. She dug her heels into the sand, creating weight and drag, slowing them down until Sestiva couldn't pull her at all through violent tugs.

"Helen. Move." Sestiva demanded, pulling on her arm.

"No, Sestiva. I know what you're trying to do." Helen said, staring her down, prying her arm away from her hand. "You're just trying to get me to take you to Valencia, aren't you?"

Sestiva bowed her head, letting her hand come to a rest at her side.

"You wanted to invade Cadiz, didn't you, Sestiva."

Still was still no response from the younger sibling. Helen's tone grew angrier and louder by the second.

"No, I didn't want to, I swear! I didn't want to go anywhere _near _Cadiz." Sestiva lied, putting a smile on her face to reassure Helen that she wasn't going to do what she thought she would do. "Trust me, I wasn't even close to thinking about it. As much as I hate the Armada, I've heard the reports of the latest invasions. I simply want to travel all around the spiral. There's plenty of places we can go through besides Valencia, right?"

"I can't believe I'm trusting you."

"What? I'm telling the truth, I promise."

Helen rolled her eyes and sighed, grabbing Sestiva's hand this time, pulling her forwards to the docks. The ship swayed ever so slightly with the gentle breeze, creaking wood as the wind swept through the spaces in between the wood.

Helen released her grip on Sestiva's hand, letting her loose and free to explore the inside and deck of the skiff. She then joined Sestiva on the ship and waited to show Sestiva around, being the only one who knew their way around after getting a tour herself from the dockmaster.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :)))))))))**

**-Samantha Hawkins**


	74. Chapter 74

**74: Take One for the Team**

Weapons clashed upon the ship as the Armada took down the Zipman sisters. Sestiva, on deck, fended off the Marines, unable to pierce their shields. She slashed and jabbed at them with her staff, but the soldiers were too quick for her. They would always block her attacks while at the same time advancing on the small witchdoctor.

Helen noticed the opening on the Marine's backs as they advanced on her little sister. Helen ran at them, stabbing one of them with her bayonet right through the back, pulling it back out just as the other one turned its attention towards her.

"Sestiva! Kill it!" Helen ordered, pulling her rifle across her body to shield her from the Marine's sharp, long, halberd. "NOW!"

Sestiva thrust her staff right through his neck. Helen backed up to make sure she wasn't within the Marine's attacking range. Sestiva pulled the staff to the left, making the staff come out the back of his neck, fully decapitating him. She watched as the Armada Marine fell to the ground with a _clunk_, echoing off the wooden floors of the deck.

"Now for the _rest_." Sestiva muttered, pulling her staff back into place for a battle stance. She narrowed her eyes and glanced over at Helen. "Let's finish this quickly, then we can _finally_ head back on course."

Helen nodded in agreement. The last few were musketeers, which meant that she could have to be extra careful. They were faster than marines. If the Marines were too fast for even Sestiva, then the musketeers would be even more difficult to deal with.

Unless…

Unless Sestiva didn't use _direct_ attacks with her blade.

"Sestiva, go on top of the mast. I'll stay down here." Helen whispered, making sure that the Armada wouldn't hear, even though their hearing was extremely sharp.

Sestiva scrambled up the ropes as fast as she could, nearly falling a few times, but made the climb to the right above the sails, crouched against the mast.

Helen kneeled after moving next to the stairs to the ship's wheel, hiding.

The musketeers approached. They saw her hide. They knew where she was, but did they know about Sestiva? Probably not. Practically throwing herself out of her hiding spot, she made a few shots at them. One shot for each soldier, hitting them right above the knee to lose their balance. Sestiva cast spells on them from above, the light of it making them both unable to keep balance and speed because of their legs, and nearly blinding them as well. They were sent into confusion for a few seconds.

Helen stabbed one through the head and pushed it down to the lower back with a knife which she strapped to her leg. Sestiva came down and stabbed one of the two remaining through the back and used the soldier to smack the last one off the ship.

Sestiva pulled up the staff against the ship's railing to dislodge the musketeer's frame.

"At least we got through that together." Sestiva said, cleaning off the bits of metal left behind on the blade. "Honestly, I think we should continue to _stay_ off course."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-Samantha Hawkins **


	75. Chapter 75

**75: Alone**

Helen sat alone on the large space above Sestiva's little practice cave. Every night, the classes would rotate watching over Skull Island at night, to prevent any surprise attacks that enemies might have. All of Skull Island knew that there had been more than several attempts to attack in the middle of the night, where mostly all places are vulnerable with all defenses down.

Her other classmates were scattered elsewhere among the mass of Skull Island, protecting even Skull Mountain, which was infested with troggies and cutthroats. Helen was lucky she was assigned where she was. If she got positioned on the bridge, she's have to defend the bridge with her life, as Troggies seem to have a tendency to try and cross the bridge and revolt against Captain Avery because they disliked the harsh living conditions he had given them. Pirates always watching them from every corner there was.

Sestiva should be sound asleep at their house, but there were some days where Helen noticed that she snuck off somewhere in the middle of the night. She could've left before Helen went to her assigned location, but she didn't check her room since the door was closed and she didn't feel like intruding and waking up her sister on accident.

Helen picked up the faint sound of a shot firing in the distance and what seemed to follow as a mixed scream of terror and anger. It was probably the Troggies again. They were always out of control. It happened almost every night she was out in the middle of the night.

She scratched her head and stretched. It was almost morning. She bent down to pick up her rifle, getting ready to head back down the steep sandy slope. As she turned to leave, she saw a black speck heading her direction. It was sprinting in her direction. Her rifle was back up to her eye in her hands in an instant.

A charge was fired, missing the target by barely an inch. The figure stumbled to the side a little, seemingly scared, making it look like Helen had shot it. It broke back into a sprint again, charging up the hill. Helen hid around the corner, seeing the figure approaching. The closer it got, the more familiar it looked. Was it Sestiva?

It _was_ her little sister, the figure that she nearly _killed_ in towards the break of dawn. She seemed to know she was there too. Helen was one of the best in her class.

Sestiva threw herself around the corner, throwing a punch to her face. Helen backed up, enough so that Sestiva would miss. Sestiva had every right to punch her. Helen nearly killed her own sister.

Helen was surprised when Sestiva wasn't as angry as she thought she was going to be.

"You nearly killed me," Sestiva snapped, twirling her staff in one hand. She was surprisingly calm, unlike most other situations where she would simply explode and try to kill her right back.

"How was _I _supposed to know it was you? Jet black figures all look the same to me," Helen shrugged, pushing past Sestiva, finally going to get some sleep after a full twenty-four hours.

* * *

**I'm finally updating! I'm so so sorry I didn't update for about a month. So very sorry. :( But anyways, I must run and hide before Severina de Strango comes and smacks me for not updating in that time. XD**

**Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and _please_ leave a review to help me become a better writter. :D**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	76. Chapter 76

76: Peace

It had been a day of non-stop fighting. Sestiva never knew that invading an Armada fortress would be so hard and stressful. Fortunately, there were few of them to maintain it. It was a small fortress after all, not a lot of them were _needed._

She leaned against a wall, out of sight, near the core of the fortress, where all the heavy machinery was. In the center of the room there was one large column, around five feet in diameter, that kept the structure in the air at all times, turning a rather large propeller on the bottom.

Helen scouted from above, taking notice of any incoming ship there was. If soldiers were being unloaded from them, then she would fire a shot from above. The structure was metal, so the sound of it would echo down to the core of the fortress. Sestiva would come up and attack, then go back down below to learn how it worked.

At least, that _was_ the plan.

Not a single ship came towards them, as if they knew. Not a single ship was even _close _to them. Now _ that_ was something to be worried about. Squinting, Helen searched for more ships, but there was none within a two mile range of them.

It's not that the Armada wasn't _there_, just on the other side of Valencia, fending off a _parasite_, as heard from one of the fusiliers when the Armada sent reinforcements a couple days before. He described it as _purple_ with a _crystal _like form. The description also included some sort of mist that contained traces of carbon monoxide, as he had detected when he was on Granchia. It would quickly spread from one soldier to another, the crystals rapidly forming on their delicate frames.

Trying to get the problem dealt with quickly, they sent three fleets, thinking that it would be enough to break a few crystals. The first attempt failed with 90% casualties, leaving ten soldiers coming back to Cadiz to inform Kane of their unexpected failure.

Kane, now taking these crystals as a major threat, pulled all defenses from fortresses all around the spiral.

Hundreds of fleets headed towards Granchia, which was also the only time where ships had come _close_ to the fortress Sestiva and Helen were hiding in, which was all the way on the opposite end of Valencia. Cadiz, being as large as it was, blocked their view of anything going on on the other side.

From what they were able to see, there were so many _ships_ it took up a whole half of the skyway, the cluster practically stretched its way around Cadiz itself entirely. Kane must've called hundreds of fleets in for extra protection, defenses that were always at the ready and able to be quickly replaced.

For a moment or two, Sestiva and Helen thought about sailing out with the hundreds and thousands of fleets, blending in among them since they made sure that their ship was the same colors.

As long as they _lingered_ a little farther away than the cluster, then it would be hard to specifically distinguish their faces.

Most likely, it was a great opportunity to get close to Kane himself, but they needed a way to get past his strong defenses. They could see clearly that along the edge of Cadiz there were soldiers lining the edge, not a single space left unguarded.

Maybe not as easy as they thought.


	77. Chapter 77

**77: War**

At a young age, it was important to know that the pirates were at war with the Armada. It was basic knowledge. Survivors of the frequent invasions Skull Island sent out often gathered children by the life fountain in Avery's Court, telling stories about the amount of sheer torture the Armada put them through to reveal information about what Avery's next move was, just so that they won't one day side with the Armada or even think of joining them in any sort of way.

At age eight, Sestiva Zipman, before she even learned magic, was told that the Armada was originally used for good purposes, until they got out of control. After one story of how they were robot soldiers used to end wars, she rather admired them. She thought that becoming as _strong_ as one might help her when she signs a mandatory contract to be in the resistance.

She wanted to come across as fierce, just like them. She wanted to be intimidating, just like them. She wanted to be _respected_, just like they were when they got out of control, not to be messed with. She wanted to be almost _exactly_ like them, which she never told any other pirate about, not even her own sister.

Every month or so, she would tone down her voice so that it would sound more monotone, like theirs, but it was so slight that no one around her noticed. After realizing how hard it was to remain like that for the rest of her life, she stopped.

She would have to enroll in classes the following year, which would automatically put them in the draft for the war _against_ the Armada. She already knew what class she wanted to be, though she didn't want to enroll in a single one of them. She wanted to keep out of the war and leave the Armada be. Maybe if Skull Island wouldn't constantly but their head in every situation there was in the spiral the worlds would finally get along and be at peace, but the overwhelming amount of pride that Skull Island possessed would not let them assimilate with the way the other worlds were.

The other worlds were quite peaceful, kept to themselves, never butting into another world's business.

Skull Island just couldn't assimilate.

The worlds had agreed to work together _one _time because of the Armada's plan to completely take over the spiral.

Sestiva refused to fight the Armada. If she was forced to, she would, but since no one was technically monitoring her, then she would sneak off in the midst of battle hide somewhere, preferably somewhere close to the Armada. If the battle was on ship, then she would sneak off beneath the decks of the Armada's ship, which would be covered by the mass confusion and destruction during the fight.

She smirked from the idea. If she did it then she could get away from Skull Island, her sister, and she could also stay with the Armada, secretly of course.

But will it work?

It was war and if she got caught, then she would most likely be shot dead.

* * *

**Happy Holidays, everyone! **

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	78. Chapter 78

**78: Freedom**

Fleets of ships still kept coming forwards, causing panic to rise within the large ground forces of the pirates. They were exhausted after a full day of fighting, some struggling to stand and stay conscious.

The ships on the other hand, were approaching Skull Island at an alarming speed. The pirates didn't even think they would have time to reload their guns and re-stock their weapon count, to make up for the amount of casualties there were on the battlefield.

So far, the oncoming fleet was the largest, including well over two-hundred ships, comparing to the previous waves of only fifty. It would seem as though the Armada was trying to overwhelm them, which would force the pirates to surrender their island and hand it over to the Armada for them to control.

Avery forced the pirates on Skull Island to stay on their feet. They never got a break. Pirates from all over the spiral were called in from their missions to come and help, but as some came, they turned back because they didn't want to be part of the resistance any longer.

While the pirates were busy watching the colossal fleet heading towards them, they weren't noticing the tiny skiff transporting and unloading foot soldiers onto the island, going into homes, and taking out the children that will later become a major threat.

Luckily for Sestiva and Helen, they supported themselves. They managed to make enough money by themselves growing up on the streets of Skull Island. They hid in their kitchen cabinet, locking themselves in from the inside. They had made sure, since the same thing happened around twenty years ago, to have some place where they would be safe.

From the constant beat of the Armada's marching, they could tell that the Armada was coming closer to them. At any minute, they would break down the door to their small house, and check for children. If there wasn't anyone inside, they would leave.

The cabinets weren't very big, just large enough to fit a person. They were the only cabinets in the kitchen, the rest, even though they looked the same underneath the counter, were false. They didn't really open.

Helen had always drilled Sestiva on how to quiet her breathing so it wasn't detectable. She covered her nose and mouth with her hands as soon as she heard voices inside the building.

"Search the closets," the first voice said, clearly recognizable as an Armada officer. The loud creaking of wood immediately followed the command. The officer stayed behind, as his steps went in the opposite direction of the others.

The officer was smarter than Sestiva had previously thought, knocking on the false cabinets to make sure they weren't hollow. Panicking, she motioned for both herself and Helen to press their bodies against the side so make it sound like it was against the wall. The officer knocked on the cabinet door. Satisfied, he moved on, joining the rest of his squadron. It had worked. They were going to survive the battle.

They heard the soldiers exiting the building, marking a symbol in the front door to signal to the rest of the Armada that that building had been checked already. Then they moved on.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	79. Chapter 79

**79: Global**

Sestiva had left immediately after Cadiz fell into the dark depths of the spiral. She fled to Marleybone where she could hide until she went and destroyed Beachhead. She knew how fast Pathogen had spread. The powerful substance could spread on anything, it was out of Sestiva's control.

If it got out of hand, it might even cause global extinction. She saw what happened to the soldiers guarding the entrance when it had fully blocked it off, impaling them, driving them insane. It was horrifying in her eyes and so she fled before Cadiz could fully collapse as she got halfway to her exit.

She left her belongings on the undetected island she "claimed", knowing she would have to worry about it later. There were more important things, like not getting completely flattened and dragged down to the bottom of the spiral by Cadiz which was currently dangerously tilting her direction.

Helen tried to persuade her to go back and get their things, but Sestiva insisted on leaving it behind. She was very attactched to her collection of potions in the rather large cave on the island, but her survival was much more valuable that a few potions that she could easily re-create back on Skull Island, where she had much more.

_It could be the end of the world. Pathogen would cause the whole spiral to cease to exist. Everyone I know will disappear and nothing will be able to survive. _

_All because of me._

Sestiva shook the thoughts out of her head while she read some of her potion making books that she left on the ship when she was in Valencia in the local Tavern. Everywhere else was much too quiet to her comfort. When everyone was supporting the war effort it was harder to find a place that actually had noise. She could focus better when there was at least a few people in the room with her.

It was comforting to know that she didn't have to be paranoid of who was watching her. When she was in Valencia, she had to assume there were spies all over Sivella Academy, so she decided to remain silent the entire time she was there, even though she had only gone to do some research about the origins of the Armada during her spare time, when she wasn't creating a killer substance.

She stood up, and walked out of the tavern, going back to the Inn they were staying at. It was a cold dark night in Marleybone, and just the atmosphere of the city sent chills down her spine. It was extremely shifty when walking alone, especially when no one was out, filling the air with an eerie silence.

Of course, Sestiva had more than just eerie, shifty cities to worry about though.

She had to understand that the fate of the spiral itself could possibly be extinction.

So it would seem, that with Pathogen, the fight for the survival of the spiral had just begun.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	80. Chapter 80

**80: Extinct**

All the spiral needed was peace, but the very presence of the Armada set off every world there was. They started putting up stronger defenses. They shot down most ships that came their way. Trade stopped and worlds were struggling to find the resources they needed for certain types of weaponry.

If _anything_ all it really did was weaken and make the worlds even _less_ ready for attacks against them then they already were. However, the worlds managed to make do with what they had, finding substitutes for the substances they were missing.

Each of the islands, all around the spiral called for a draft, as preparation for the Armada attacks. They were _paranoid_ about the Armada, which is _exactly_ what they wanted. They wanted the worlds to cower before them, surrender their arms, and rule.

They wanted the worlds on their knees, begging for mercy.

The only thing to prevent their world domination, was to eradicate them, the same thing the Armada wanted to do with the pirates, so that their ways would be uniform, nothing would _ever_ be out of place that way.

Sestiva, in the past, always read about how the Armada was originally created by the Marleybonians, to help end the war between the many worlds in the spiral. They helped reduce human casualties, but unfortunately, the artificial intelligent Armada took their own control, and turned on them, forming their own alliance and planning to take over the world.

Sestiva at first thought, that there was some sort of _humanity_ in the Armada, since they were programmed by _humans_ in the first place. Then the invasions started. Skull Island would send out _hundreds _of pirates to go and fight at Cadiz, the biggest Armada fortress to ever exist.

But when they came back with low numbers, around ten to twelve at the most, Sestiva knew at once, that the Armada had _no_ humanity like she had previously thought they had. She was once again proven wrong when the Armada came and _attacked_ Skull Island right back, killing thousands right before her eyes.

When she went outside after the battle, the almost white sand covering Skull Island was mostly consumed by blood red.

Following that horrible event, she was determined to destroy them, it wasn't like they deserved to live after what they did, especially to her home island. From the battle, a great number of Skull Island's population ended up in a large number of casualties. She _hated_ how she could do nothing during the fight. If only she knew how.

She needed them gone.

Out of the spiral for good.

No more slaughtering the islands full of pirates.

They had to be _eradicated. _

_Extinct._

Then the worlds could finally let down their defenses. The trade routes would be back in order, no ships gunning down pirates for no reason.

Just peace.

And Sestiva Zipman just had one goal in her mind that wouldn't go away, not until the entire war was over, in _all_ the worlds, not just Skull Island.

_Destroy the Armada._

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	81. Chapter 81

**81: Wounded**

It was a wonder how Helen survived the small nautical battle with the Armada. She was cornered by the marines. Her rifle wouldn't do much good against the thick, iron, body length shields that formed a half-circle around her.

When she tried shooting at them, it left a mark on the shield, but no actual damage was done, she marines ever so slowly making the semicircle around her smaller and smaller. At that point, she might as well just fall right off the ship and continuously down through the sky.

She _hoped_ that Sestiva would come to her rescue if she could, after dealing with the last of the musketeers. Given that Sestiva has a melee weapon, it would've been easier to deal with the marines, but put up a musketeer up close with the marines, and they are pretty much helpless.

Looking in between the shields, she could see Sestiva jab her staff through the musketeer and throw him overboard. There were still two of them left.

Now she was abandoning all her hope. Sestiva wouldn't get done with them in time to save her from certain death at this point.

The marines took the time she was distracted by her younger sister to strike, swinging their axes downwards. She jumped, avoiding _most _of the long halberds they carried. One of them, however, embedded itself around an inch or two through her upper arm.

She yelped at the sudden pain in her arm, and grimaced as the blade was yanked free from the wound, which was now bleeding heavily. Clutching her bleeding arm, she called for her sister, who turned in her direction, just as the marines raised their halberds yet again, closing in on Helen a little more than before.

Helen squeezed her eyes shut as she prepared for death, preparing for the blade to hit the side of her neck.

_Why is he taking to long? If he wants me dead, then why is he hesitating? _

When she opened her eyes and looked up, the one marine that raised his blade stayed in the same position, but Sestiva's staff blade peaked out from his abdomen.

Sestiva planted her end of the staff on the wooden deck, then she heaved upwards, bringing the marine crashing down on her right side. The other marines, taking notice about how threatening he really was, they stopped targeting Helen, the helpless musketeer who was now on her knees, her shaking arms trying to get a steady aim on their faces.

Sestiva dealt with the last of them, driving him to the edge of the ship and kicking him off with ease.

"Are you okay, Helen?" Sestiva asked, trotting over to Helen's side.

"One of the blades caught me in the shoulder," Helen replied, wincing from the sharp pain caused by the wound in her arm. "It's still bleeding pretty badly."

Sestiva went below deck, and came back with some gauze to cover it to stop the bleeding.

"This is why I have to work with you, Helen," Sestiva smirked, laughing a little. "You can't really survive on your own."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	82. Chapter 82

**82: Breathe**

On the way to Valencia, Sestiva was a nervous wreak. She frantically studied the anatomy of the soldiers, flipping though pages and pages of the different parts and where the vital gears and parts were located, like in the neck or lower stomach.

She focused and focused, every once in a while going on the deck and practiced with her staff, trying to gain more control of it to ensure that she'll hit the right spot when the time comes to actually fight them.

She practiced several different ways of attacking, going one by one until each of them was perfect. Knowing that the Armada was agile, she also focused on how fast she was able to fire spells again.

Channeling energy was a big part of witchdoctor training. When she was younger, she went through a trial session at each class, to determine which class you get into, which depended on which class you were best at.

If she channels a lot of energy, but only uses a little bit, she can fire spells quickly, but for a witchdoctor it took a lot of skill and focus. If she gets distracted even the slightest bit, then it won't have the same effect. She'll end up using up too much of her energy, more than what she actually has, and will result in her death.

Other witchdoctors, like her, have tried the same thing, and have survived, but barely. One in every fifty witchdoctors will survive that kind of thing. They were extremely powerful witchdoctors, prodigies, but even they nearly died trying to use more then what they had.

When they came close to no energy, they _know _it.

She went down to her cabin, the walls now covered in sketches and weak points and notes. She noticed someone had organized her once messy desk. Helen had been inside while she was on deck and she didn't even notice.

She sat back down at her desk, taking out books about the Armada from the shelf next to her desk and laying them out on her bed. When she realized they were almost at the stormgate for Avernus Skyway. They were getting closer to Valencia by the minute and panic was starting to set in.

_I'm not going to be ready. Not for them. I won't even be close to being able to defeat them if I have this little knowledge about them. Valencia is less then a day's time away and I feel like I only have half of it down. What am I going to do?_

There was a knock on her cabin door.

"Sestiva are you in there?" Helen asked curiously, twisting the door handle slightly, just in case Sestiva responded.

"Yeah I'm in here," Sestiva said quickly, as if she were running out of air, continuously flipping through pages at a fast pace. "How far away are we?"

"Sestiva breathe. We're stopping in between Avernus and Aragon Skyway for the night. It'll be another day or two before we get there. No need to panic you have plenty of time. Plus, we're going to have to find some place to hide while we're in Valencia. We won't be fighting for another week or so."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-Samantha Hawkins **


	83. Chapter 83

**83: Head over Heels**

She was always told to not get too attached to anything. So she didn't. She did exactly what she was told. She believed everything she was told. Absolutely everything. She constantly had false information. If she heard that the Armada was showing _some_ mercy for the pirates, she'd believe it.

Sestiva was _unbelievably_ guillable.

She often had to argue with her sister that she was right, and then Helen proved her wrong and was able to back up her statement, versus Sestiva was unable to.

If Sestiva was told that they're stopping training pirates to go fight the Armada for the war, she'd believe them, but at the same time she'd be outraged by the fact Skull Island would let the Armada take over the world while they just sat there with every single one of their defenses down.

"Sestiva you can't always believe what you hear," Helen scolded, fed up with Sestiva's guillableness. "Not everything people say is true, you know that. They twist their words. If you ever are going to fight the Armada you have to learn what to believe and what not to believe. If someone says the Armada is nice to them, you have to choose not to believe it because that's not actually how the Armada is."

"Are you _serious_, Helen?!" Sestiva asked, shocked by her sisters words. "You're always siding with me and how you're against me?!"

"Sestiva, I'm against you because what you're doing will get you _killed_ when you fight them. I'm trying to keep you alive. I want both of us to return from Cadiz when Skull Island sends us, alive. This is something you have to do. Believing everything you hear is just going to make you weaker because you won't be expecting anything, and you won't be prepared, which is how you'll end up dying."

"You don't need to lecture me, Helen. I can figure this stuff out on my own."

"Apparently I do since you've been doing it for the past seven years and you haven't fixed it yet. So _clearly_ you need someone to fix it for you. You can't argue with me you know it's true."

"Helen I thin—"

"No, Sestiva. You need to fix it. Do you want to die?"

"No, Helen, of course I don't want to die."

"Then fix it. You'll be better that way. Learn do decipher what's true and false."

Sestiva turned around, walking away from Helen. If destroying the Armada was her dream, then she was going to do anything to get it. She would fix it, if it upped her chances of defeating them.

She could say, she was head over heels for the plan. Now it was her goal, but she knew she couldn't just say everything was false.

She had to learn to take information from multiple sources to try and figure out which statement was correct.

She will do _anything_ to fix her flaw. Absolutely anything. Even if it meant killing, which she would gladly do.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	84. Chapter 84

**84: Country**

Sestiva watched as the dark space between worlds was illuminated, along with a harsh wind, as they emerged into the skyways of Cool Ranch. The wind died down and she could already feel the hot, harsh, unrelenting sun beating down on her backside. The sky was tinted with blue, which then tinted down to a violet colour. The windlane her ship was pulled into had a bright blue hue.

The sun was so bright Sestiva was forced to squint everywhere she looked.

Canyons and ridges were along the center of the skyway, a few cities located on enormous ledges that peaked out from the side. There were few cities and islands, as Sestiva noted earlier.

There were one or two cities in the area, either of which have low population. Other islands were either uninhabited or large farm lands that were spread extremely far apart from each other.

It's just like the country lands that she read about when she was little. Only she was now experiencing it first hand. The sky and the clouds below her were bright, hot pink, but she had to admit that it made the world look pretty.

She had heard rumors about Cool Ranch being the biggest world of all time, stretching to five enormous Skyways long, the longest being Haunted Skyway at around thirteen to fifteen thousand steps long. It took forever to get from one skyway to another on ship, so a lot of the time pirates would take a shortcut by cutting straight through Junction, which took them from Cooper's Roost straight to Tumbleweed Skyway, saving about a day's worth of straight sailing.

When they finally docked at Cooper's Roost, they got off the ship and went straight to the tavern, where they apparently have an Inn included on the upper floor. It was a lot more lively then Sestiva expected. It was like an all out food fight inside the tavern, rowdy customers laughing hysterically as they called for more drinks. A piano player was playing the upright piano in the corner of the tavern by the stairs.

The window in their room gave them a good view of the skyway outside, the bright light from the sun shone through the red curtains on the window, covering the room in red light. It almost didn't look natural.

She could hear the commotion from the tavern below through the floor, some being loud enough to actually _shake_ the floor.

Cool Ranch wasn't one of Sestiva's favorite places. She had heard that the Haunted Skyway was _overrun_ by the Armada and that they were everywhere, hidden somewhere in every skyway, watching your every move.

Cool Ranch was also known for their ghost stories, as they were famous all around the spiral. The stories were also known in the wizard worlds which pirates didn't get involved with. They were far too powerful for the pirate's liking. They always wanted to come take over the pirate's lands, overrun them with wizards, assimilate the pirates to their ways, which wasn't really all that different.

Cool Ranch, the land of farms and canyons.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-Samantha Hawkins**


	85. Chapter 85

**85: Volcanic**

It was almost night, and Helen had no clue where Sestiva was. She searched the whole island, and couldn't find her little sister anywhere. Not even in the shops where she usually would be at that time of day.

Helen checked in Sestiva's closet, under her bed, and under several tables, where Sestiva would usually hide to scare her, but she wasn't in any of those locations. Something was definitely up with her. She didn't know whether she wanted to look for her or wait for her to come back.

Sighing she got up from her crouched position next to Sestiva's bed. She stretched out her arms. She had to go look for her little sister since she couldn't really ask around where she had been. No one really knew, and that was a major problem. No one ever knew where she was, nor did they care. She was just another pirate that is throwing her whole life aside for nothing, as they thought of all pirates really.

To them, being a pirate was a hopeless dream. They train as hard as they possibly can, only to tossed aside, only sent out when peace needed to be restored and pointless trips to Cadiz, which mostly made pirates wind up dead.

Sestiva, often angered by their opinion, disappeared to do her own thing, most likely train harder, to prove that she can come back from Cadiz alive and well. She just wanted to prove them wrong, to prove that being a pirate was not a hopeless dream of any sort. Pirates really, were their only source of defense, and if all of them were gone, all hope will be lost.

_Wait. If she goes off and disappears to train harder and prove them wrong, then that means…she's in her little cave. Like always. _

Helen dashed out of the house, as fast as she could, to get to the cave. It was almost completely dark outside, and she needed Sestiva home. Sand flew in Helen's eyes and in her hair due to a strong wind as she ran, holding one arm above her eyes so she could still, at least see. It was difficult, she still had to squint, but she could faintly see the cave on top of the steep path up to the plateau.

"Sestiva! Are you in there?" Helen shouted, trying to overcome the volume of the wind. The sand constantly beating against her arms was starting to hurt, so she practically threw herself into the cave, ending up crashing to the stone floor, landing on her left elbow.

There was Sestiva, staff in hand, preparing to cast a spell, when she saw her sister sprawled out on the floor of the cave. She looked angry at first, but then her expression softened and helped her up.

"Are you still angry about what the townspeople said a few hours ago?" Helen asked, putting a hand on Sestiva's shoulder.

"What do you _think_?" Sestiva spat, back to her angry expression.

Helen knew that was a yes. Sometimes, Sestiva was volcanic. Completely harmless at one point, and then the next, she would explode and destroy everything in her path.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :D**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	86. Chapter 86

**86: Houdini**

"Find them!" an officer shouted at his squadron to find the intruders that escaped the prison in their most important base of all time. One of them members in his squadron, when going to switch positions, he had only found two lifeless frames, and broken glass, then proceeded to inform his officer that there had been some sort of intruder.

He ran back down through the first floor, his footsteps echoing through the halls on the hard, brass floor. He was told there was an intruder that was taken into captivity, but was never told what happened later on.

However, the cell door was wide open. The prisoner couldn't have gotten far with Cadiz's security. Unless…they had found away to escape.

He began to examine the frames lying contorted on the floor. He turned over the first one that was lying near the cell door. He jumped back, after seeing the front of the frame. It had tiny, purple crystals that were growing out of the front of the mask and the back of his gloves.

It looked like a disease. Like the plague that spread throughout the worlds a decade before.

He didn't dare touch the crystals, in fear of contamination. Something like the purple crystals could be treated as a severe threat. Stepping back from the frame, he flipped the other frame over, only to see the exact same thing as the first frame.

He tried to scan the substance, analyzing it for what seemed like hours. All he ended up with, was the word: _Unknown._

Now he was _scared_. Not only there was an unknown substance within Cadiz, it seemed to be deadly, and because they were the Armada, there was no antidote for it at all.

He examined the glass as well, the pieces were scattered all over the floor, the cork laying lazily off to the side. He picked up the cork, the bottom of it was still _wet_. It was exposed to the air for less than half an hour, meaning whoever they took captive earlier, couldn't have gotten very far.

It would be a _true_ miracle if they somehow escaped. Cadiz was far too powerful for them to escape on their own…unless they had someone _with_ them. They would be shot down in an instant when seen.

Unfortunately, they might have had someone come along with them.

He ran off to tell his officer, but stopped when he felt a blade come close to his neck.

"Don't move, or I'll kill you," a voice coming from around the corner said threateningly. They stepped out form the shadows. A girl, around the age of seventeen, with long red hair and bright blue eyes, wearing a long brown trench coat, pointing a spear at him.

He turned his head the other way, looking for someone to contact. As he looked around, he took a step backwards, to help him look behind him. Big mistake. The girl thrust the spear forwards, into his neck. He could feel her take it out as some of his vital gears stopped turning. When he turned back around to look at her, she was gone.

Like magic.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	87. Chapter 87

**87: Unconscious**

It was cold.

_Really_ cold.

That's all Sestiva had remembered before her vision had completely faded to pitch black.

She could see herself standing above Kane's thin frame, foot on his side, raising her arms in victory. The Armada was finally gone and dealt with. She paraded through Skull Island with the delicate frame mounted on her shoulder for everyone to see. Skull Island erupted in cheers, leaders were coming from all around the spiral to congratulate her on her victory against the Armada.

Avery didn't believe her before she set out to Valencia, so she pushed the doors to his office open and plopped Kane's frame down, making sure to lay him sideways to take up all the room available on his desk.

"Believe me _now_, _Captain?_" Sestiva spat, enraged that he didn't believe her the first time she told him she would take down the Armada. She slammed her hands down on her desk. "SAY SOMETHING! I PROVED YOU WRONG DIDN'T I?!"

"I'm…_impressed."_ He said snobbishly. "Though I could've done it in less time."

"Then why didn't you get off you lazy behind and DO IT YOURSELF?"

"You _dare_ call your _captain_ lazy?"

"Yes, I can call you lazy all I want. If you could do it, why didn't you. You had the perfect opportunity to prevent sending out all those fleets and spare hundreds of our _lives_, spare the amount of casualties. _This_ is _exactly_ why I _hate_ people like _you._ You don't deserve any of my respect."

With that, Sestiva stormed out of the building, a crowd beginning to form in the courtyard. She stood atop the marble staircase in the center of the courtyard in front of Avery's office.

"He doesn't deserve our respect. He could've defeated the Armada on his own but did he? No. I want you all to get rid of him. Make someone else Captain. Anyone will do, but not him. He _needs_ to _die." _Sestiva spoke to the crowd, earning cheers afterwards in agreement.

She went back to her house, exhausted, and flopped down on her bed, closing her eyes so she could _peacefully _sleep for once.

When she opened her eyes, she looked out the window next to her bed. She wasn't in her house, she was on her own ship, sailing through Valencia. To make sure she was actually on her ship, she ran up to the deck. She saw Helen at the wheel, she felt the wind blowing through her hair. She looked to the center of the Skyway. Cadiz was still intact; Armada ships were still everywhere.

Armada soldiers were still stationed at the fortresses, Sivella Academy, and Granchia. Her heart sank. None of what she just did was real. She did everything she had while she was asleep. Of course though, defeating the Armada definitely wouldn't be as easy as it was in her sleep.

Sestiva was extremely disappointed.

Just as she thought she dealt with the last of them, proudly walking through Skull Island, proving Avery wrong…she realized…it was all just a dream.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! x3**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	88. Chapter 88

**88: Adventure**

Sestiva was _never_ allowed to go out on her own like other children were. Helen always had to be there or she had to tell her everywhere she was going to go. She _hated _it. It was almost like being a dog let out on a leash, giving them very little freedom to do as they wish, just as humans do.

Maybe it was because Helen saw her as a small child. It was so _annoying_.

Sestiva thought and thought and thought continuously about how she could somehow sneak out without Helen knowing, and be free for once. She sat in her room, fiddling with her staff, twisting it in her hands. She _could_ climb out through her window, but if she jumped down, it would make too much noise, _especially_ when she was on the second floor, making a jump.

She sighed in annoyance. She was _never_ going to be able to get away from Helen anytime soon.

_I'll probably be forced to stick with her for the rest of my life. Unless…she goes to the required hunting camp for musketeers this afternoon! She'll finally be gone, for a whole week! I'll be all by myself._

_But what to do. _

_I'm such an idiot. How can I wish for her to be gone whilst I sit here and do nothing? I have no idea what I'll do._

Sestiva bashed her head on the wall as she abruptly stood up, coming up with an idea. Yelping from the sudden pain, she sat back down on her bed, holding her head, letting her staff fall to the floor, the blade getting embedded into the wood below.

"I could…train really hard so that I can prove to her that I can do what I want without her watching me all the time!" Sestiva quietly exclaimed, leaping back onto her feet, pulling her staff free from the hard wood flooring. She threw open her bedroom door, racing down the stairs, meeting Helen at the front door.

"Sestiva! Just as I was about to come look for you!" Helen exclaimed happily, saving the effort that finding her little sister would've taken. "Anyways, I was going tell you that I'm heading off to the musketeer camp. I'll be gone for the week, so you can leave the house, as long as it's to buy food and clothing and things like that. Got it?"

"Of course!" Sestiva laughed, waving goodbye as her sister stepped out into the harsh sunlight, the door swinging shut with a _thud_. Sestiva smirked. She was finally free. Nothing could hold her back now.

Looking out the window, once Sestiva saw she was around the corner and into the shopping area, she made a mad dash for her practice cave. The sand was kicked up behind her as she ran, her grin only widening farther. She nearly danced up the slope to her cave, being as happy as she was. She just couldn't believe it. She was finally free from what was holding her back for so long.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! x3**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	89. Chapter 89

**89: Starting Over**

Smashing the bottle of Pathogen over the musketeer's head, she quickly grabbed the keys from his hand and unlocked the cell door by wrapping her arm through the bars. The door flew open with ease. She walked out, all the while observing her work. Pathogen should take effect any minute, infecting the biggest, most secure fortress in the entire spiral.

She grinned, darting around the corner, towards the docks, where Helen was waiting for her, getting ready to leave. She knew that they had to leave as fast as they can. They didn't want to get caught in what happens after Pathogen was in effect after being placed in an all metal environment.

As soon as Sestiva was halfway onto the ship, Helen began to pull in the gangplank, to make sure their departure was faster then ever. They sailed out, Sestiva raised the sails to help flee the scene that was Cadiz's complete destruction. However, it did get them spotted by a few straggler Armada ships that decided to stay behind and guard.

They were fired upon, however, Sestiva and Helen refused to fire back, as it will only make their getaway slower. The ships weren't allowed to leave their designated locations anyways, so it wasn't like it really mattered.

They didn't really care what happened to them at this point, as long as they got out of Valencia alive.

Once they passed through the stormgate, Sestiva let down the sail just a little bit, so they were still moving. Helen pulled into a windlane and she came down the steps from the ships wheel onto the ship's deck.

"That went well," Helen sighed, breaking the silence. "Cadiz has got to be gone by now, right? I mean, at the sound of how fast Pathogen works, it _should _be."

"No, it's nearly been half an hour," Sestiva replied, yawning. "With a fortress that size, it shouldn't collapse for another hour or so. By now, a third of the tower should be completely consumed in the crystal."

Helen looked confused at first, but even she could tell that Sestiva wasn't lying. She had actually thought it would go faster, seeing how fast it worked on the two soldiers she'd taken in and tested on.

"We should head to Marleybone right now. That's where Beachhead is. If Cadiz is the main base, then Beachhead, being the second largest, is the second. If we eliminate that one, then they just get smaller and smaller from there. Eliminate Beachhead, and I can assure you, the other remaining fortresses all around will be dealt with by the pirates and the other worlds."

"Let's get this over with."

Helen went back up to the ships wheel, steering them in the direction of Skull Island. Once they got back, they stayed a few days, gathering the things they'll need for the attack. Then, they headed off to the massive fortress, Beachhead, where they will find somewhere to stay in Marleybone, then start all over again. Right from the beginning.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! x3**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	90. Chapter 90

**90: Twins**

Sestiva couldn't see the differences in the two potions she had made. They both emitted the same red-orange glow, the bubbles rising rapidly to the surface of the bottles. Both of them, don't do well in the same environments.

Except for _one_ difference.

One of them would spontaneously combust, while the other potion would act as a healing agent.

Two extremely alike potions, with completely different uses.

Sestiva thought it was rather odd that something like that would happen. She had added an aloe leaf to the potion that acted as a healing agent. She thought it wouldn't change anything about the old one, but to her surprise, it did.

She labeled them both, so she wouldn't mistake one for the other. It could be that when she needs one to fix up a cut on her leg, that she makes her leg combust instead. That _wouldn't_ be good. Not at all.

Stuffing both bottles into the leather pouch that she carried around, she went back down to her house on Skull Island, where Helen waited for her, like always. Sliding down the sandy hill, she thought about studying the two potions before going to sleep.

Maybe they weren't so alike if she looked hard enough.

"Make anything new today?" Helen asked happily, letting the witchdoctor inside and shutting the door behind her. "You spent a whole lot of time alone in your cave."

"Yeah, I did," Sestiva replied, dropping off her things in her room, then coming back out to join Helen in the hall. "I ended making two identical potions, with the same physical characteristics, but what they actually do is completely different! I don't understand how that happened!"

"Really? What do they do?"

"One of them combusts, while the other one acts as a healing agent, nothing really that special. I had to label them so that I could tell them apart."

"How do you know you didn't give them the wrong labels? You could've switched them while you were working."

"When I was testing them, I put them on the opposite sides of the room, so I know for sure which potion I'm using."

Sestiva went back to her room and pulled the two bottles out of the leather pouch now hanging off the side of her chair. Carefully placing them on her desk, she took out her notebook and began to make sketches and take detailed notes.

She noticed that the healing agent, the one she added aloe to, was a lot thicker than the one that combusted when she turned them in her hand, the one with the aloe moving a lot slower than the other one.

She took note that even if two things are extremely similar, they could actually be completely different, she just has to look at them a lot more closely and study them.

So all she had to do was study them. Just because they have the same appearance, doesn't necessarily mean that they are the exact same and do the exact same thing. Just the small details like how thick it is makes a big difference.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	91. Chapter 91

**91: Open Heart**

Sestiva always was told to go talk to Helen if she ever had any problems. All because they said she had an "open heart". At first, she had no idea what it meant, but soon she got the idea after asking for an explanation.

There was _no_ way that she was going to talk to Helen about her _feelings_. There was just no way. She had way too much pride to stoop so low as to talk to her older sister about it. She could vent out her emotions another way. Going out and training. That's always how she did it, focusing every last bit of energy on spells and potions, to get it off her mind.

An open heart won't do her much good, as it may slow down her progress to bringing the Armada down. She didn't have time for some pathetic talk. Even if she did have time, she wouldn't bother talking about how she felt.

She wouldn't say she really had an open heart. Sure, pirates occasionally told her how they felt about certain things, but Sestiva thought nothing of it and never listened to them. She wasn't really good at the whole "feelings" thing either. The moment she would say something back, it would sound like she didn't even care about them, offend them, or she wouldn't know how to respond to their statement.

"You need an open heart to survive," The people around her said. "It'll get you more allies in the future, for when you go to Cadiz."

Simply rolling her eyes, she walked away from what they said. It's true that it'll make her more friends and allies, but for _Cadiz?_ Definitely not. Why couldn't she just do it alone, like she always wanted to do? Was it really that bad to not have allies? If she was going to fight at Cadiz by herself, then there was no _need_ for an open heart nor did she want to have one.

Sestiva gave herself a situation where she did have allies going into Cadiz. Assuming that all of them will be dead by the end of the battle, she didn't want to feel responsible for their death, grieve over them, and have to deal with their mourning families.

No allies. That was final.

She didn't want allies in anything.

The witchdoctor didn't _care_ if she didn't have any friends or allies. All that mattered is what she does and what she achieves.

It didn't really matter to her, if she lives or dies, but if she does what she always wanted to do, then she'll be happy with it.

"You _should_ talk about your feelings you know," Helen lectured her, the same lecture that she'd already given so many times. She was serious, making sure Sestiva listened to every single word that came out of her mouth. "It helps better then going out and training, because it'll come back to your mind eventually."

"I don't _care_," Sestiva snapped, glaring at Helen. "I can do whatever I wish to deal with my feelings. So for the the thousandth time, I don't _care._"

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	92. Chapter 92

**92: Welcomes**

Helen hoped to return to Skull Island with a warm welcome once they return to Skull Island. _If _they returned to Skull Island. Their chances of getting back alive were very slim, but she hoped she could do it.

She'd be forever grateful, if she even got back with major injuries. Based on the stories that she heard, she'd be shaking once she stepped foot in that fortress.

She heard that they intimidated the pirates by hanging their mutilated bodies on Cadiz's walls, drenching the brass in blood, as decoration. Declaring a definite Armada victory. For the past decade, that's how it seemed to go.

The pirates would flee, but she wouldn't let mutilated bodies and blood intimidate her. It was the Armada they were talking about. It wasn't like they had any humanity in them. They probably didn't care about how gross and disturbing they made the bodies, as long as it scared pirates off.

Helen was determined to prove them dead wrong, like usual. That's what she and her sister usually did. Other pirates would mistake them for being weak, but when they showed what they can do, they were successful and drove them away, not to be bothered again.

However, if she could prove Skull Island wrong after they said that thousands and thousands among thousands of fleets couldn't stand a chance against the Armada, by doing it with only two people, then they most likely will be worshiped among the people of Skull Island.

It really wasn't their fault that no one really had faith in each other anymore, especially after the first Armada attack on Skull Island. No one followed the orders they were given, causing chaos throughout their homeland. Most of the pirates fighting looked stronger than they actually were. They _looked_ promising, but when they actually fought, they were extremely weak, which most of the pirates were. They lost hope and fait in each other, and gave up on fighting all together.

Helen's eyes narrowed as they approached Cadiz. She could clearly see the bodies were hung on the side of the fortress for a while. She looked behind her, as if Skull Island could see her from where she was.

She pulled up to Cadiz. It was odd, seeing that there were no guards at the _front_ entrance. Maybe Kane was there, so they had to increase security up higher in the many floors, and worry less about what could ever happen below it.

It was now or never. She and Sestiva had one shot. If they failed, then Skull Island would just forget about them. Just a speck in the history of their entire population. They would just disappear, but if they succeeded, then they would make history.

"Let's be quick about it," Helen said sternly to Sestiva. "I don't want them chasing after us all the way back to Skull Island if we get out alive."

"Alright then," Sestiva replied with a devilish grin. "I'll be _very_ quick about it."

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins**


	93. Chapter 93

**93: Daring**

Sestiva dared herself to step inside Cadiz, and she did. If she dared herself to go and do something, she would go for sure and just _do_ it. If she was dared by _something_ or _someone_, she would go and do it. Every single time, she did it successfully.

She felt like she achieved something the moment she completed what was asked of her. Sometimes, it meant pushing herself so far that she barely manages to stand up, but it only made herself stronger. She completed each dare with a wicked grin, proving to her opponent that she wasn't the helpless, little, defenseless, weak girl he or she thought her to be.

These dares would also let her clear her mind and think about if what she was doing was a scenario that might happen all the while fighting the Armada. She treated it as motivation. The more scenarios she gets, the more she'll know what to do if it actually happens.

She popped her head around a corner, peering down the hall to her left, while Helen did the same to the right. Helen tapped her, twice on the shoulder and a wiping motion on her back, their own signal that it was clear on that side. Sestiva did the same, but two taps on the shoulder and a line down the left shoulder blade. It meant that there was one soldier there.

Helen pointed to Sestiva, then down the hall, and finally gently placing a fist in her palm, without making a single noise. Sestiva nodded in agreement, grinning widely, hands on her spear, ready to race down the hall.

_Go_, Helen mouthed, smiling as Sestiva made the mad dash for the soldier, taking him in surprise. Fighting him wasn't going to give her the chance to use Pathogen, so getting captured would all be part of the act.

_I dare you to scream for help and after he shuts the cell door take out Pathogen and smash it on top of his head._

She did exactly that. She screamed for help and thrashed around in the soldier's grasp. It wasn't strong, but it was firm. He tossed her into the cell and closed it shut, standing guard right outside. _Perfect_. Just too _perfect_. She took Pathogen out of the small leather pouch she carried, walking over to the door.

The soldier turned around, something she didn't expect, but she did it once before, when someone dared her to pickpocket someone randomly on Skull Island. As she snatched the money bag attached to a woman's belt, she turned around, but Sestiva was quick to notice the sudden action and hid the money bag behind her back, slipping it into the leather pouch that was now dangling behind her mid-back after adjusting the strap. She continued as if nothing had happened, and so did the woman.

She hid the bottle behind her back and the guard went back to looking at the brass wall in front of him. She jumped up, due to the soldier being six feet tall and brought the glass bottle hard down on his head.

_I did it. I dare you get out of this cell and get back to the ship alive, before Pathogen spreads all over the fortress and it collapses._

So she did, where both she and her sister made their escape back towards Skull Island.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! I want to become a better writer so any sort of criticism will help me a whole lot! Thanks!**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	94. Chapter 94

**94: Trapped**

They were calmly sailing through Monquista, through the orange skies and bright windlanes, the wind taking them back to Skull Island. The air was filled with nothing but silence, which Sestiva broke.

"How much longer will we be sailing? I'm bored…again," Sestiva complained, squinting through the bright, harsh sunlight.

"Not for a _while_, Sestiva," Helen said. "You _know_ that."

"What do you mean by tha—Helen? Are you seeing this? HELEN!"

The Monquistan Navy. They thought they were…the Armada? Sure they had black sails, to look similar, but _that_ similar? No, it couldn't be.

They were surrounded by _hundreds of _ships. If they were all going to fire upon them, then this was their end. Not even their little skiff could withstand that much firepower.

_Maybe we can—no. That's not going to work, they'll shoot us down in an instant. We're trapped, nothing I can think off is going to work, I'm going to die._

Sestiva's eyes darted around frantically, trying to find some source of escape. The ship had stopped moving, the Monquistan Navy closing in on them. Did they really think they were hostile? Usually the Armada, would've fired upon them by now, though the massive navy didn't seem to realize that it was only a ship with black sails, that was all.

There wasn't really anything special about the ship either. Sestiva and Helen stored a little gold away, but not much. The Monquistan Navy wouldn't be satisfied with their ship and the contents of it. Hopefully, after finding out what little value the ship held, they would realize it was all just a waste of time and return the ship to them. They needed it to get back to Skull Island too.

Sestiva felt the ship jolt under her feet. They were moving again, towards the biggest ship, the one that had the Admiral of the Fleet on board with them. They sailed smoothly over to it, the usually grand monquistan ship made even grander with designs and gold, standing out above all the others.

The ship slowed to a halt next to the grand galleon. Sestiva laid the gangplanks across and together she and Sestiva crossed over. Royal guards, weapons at the ready, took aim, able to fire at any second the moment they made a stupid mistake.

"We would like to talk to the Admiral of the Fleet," Helen demanded, turning to the nearest crossbowman. He nodded, scurrying below decks into the office, where the Admiral of the Fleet heard the news of two pirates who were aboard their ship that wanted to talk to them.

He came up onto the main deck, where he saw Sestiva and Helen awaiting him.

"Please let us go," Helen explained their story. "We were only trying to get home to Skull Island after our trip to Valencia. We mean no harm to this world."

He seemed to ponder his decision, then he turned to one of the officers and told them to retreat.

Sestiva and Helen went back to their ship and restarted their journey back home.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	95. Chapter 95

**95: Crocodile**

"Sestiva, are you okay?" Helen asked, concerned for her little sister. "You don't seem too happy about your victory over the Armada today. You should be happy, you worked extremely hard for it!"

"Is it really over?" Sestiva said sadly, face in her hands. "Did I work this hard to bring down one giant fortress to be too slow to realize that once this fortress goes down Beachhead would take over? Did I really work this hard for absolutely nothing at all?"

"Sestiva it isn't nothing. Once we bring down Beachhead, the Armada won't know what to do. Central commands come from Cadiz and Beachhead alone, so when you take those away, the Armada is nothing but a mess of soldiers that have no idea what they're doing because they're not being given orders anymore. Maybe they _are_ getting orders from their officers, but it work they have to do around their base. It won't be like they're going to attack Skull Island anymore. With their numbers this greatly reduced, they won't be ready to attack in _years_."

"Is that what you really think? Because I think it's only going to take a matter of days. The Armada isn't human they can mass produce new soldiers in hours and it'll only take a week or two at most to rebuild all those numbers that they lost."

"Do you think they even have room for all those soldiers?"

"They don't need room. It's not like they sleep, eat, or breathe, so they don't need bedrooms or kitchens, or anything really. Just a place with a bunch of empty rooms, most of which, even when most of them have a bunch of things they need like gunpowder and things like that, some of the rooms are empty, if not even completely full. They could put soldiers in there and then they can ship soldiers over to attack."

Helen sighed. Sestiva had never had this mindset about the Armada before, and it _had_ to change.

If she kept being pessimistic about what would happen with the Armada, then why should she bother fighting them at all, or if she wanted to fight, then she could just get it done and over with it if she was that scared about it.

"Ses—"Helen was cut off by what seemed to sound like laughter. Weird. Sestiva was only sad just a moment ago.

"I was joking!" Sestiva laughed, flailing her arms around. "I'm really happy that Cadiz is gone. There's only a _few_ more fortresses, right? Plus, I made you worry about me!"

"So it was all just fake. That was sneaky, Sestiva. Maybe you should be the Musketeer instead of me, you're stealthier then I am and you can trick just about anyone you see."

"I still got you though. It was a first time thing that I tried to pull off. I thought I could make you look like you cared for once."

"Well guess what? You succeeded in making me care about you. Like I haven't _been_ caring about you ever since you were born."

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! XD**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	96. Chapter 96

**96: Music**

Silence had worked wonders for Helen. She was always able to focus better alone and when it was silent. She absolutely loved doing missions where she hid on the roof to snipe officers going in and out of buildings. It wasn't _completely_ silent, but at least _some_ quiet still helped her get through the mission.

Helen even had a silencer on her rifle. She smirked, knowing that with a silencer, the noise of the gun firing would just sound like part of the noise in the slightly busy town or city. Unlike melee attackers, she could always stay where she was and not run away, unless she wasn't careful of course, then she could be found out from the direction the sound came from and the angle at which the charge hit her target.

She only had a few disadvantages of being a long ranged fighter. She couldn't blend back into the crowd. Ground fighters could easily sheath their weapons again, but she, always having to carry a rifle on her back, wouldn't blend in so easily, as they could see her as a potential threat to their town or city.

Sadly, for her, things were harder when it was silent, _especially_ when she was on missions. Usually when it was that quiet, she could hear a pin drop, and firing a charge would only mean that it would make her all the more noticeable.

Helen sat in the top of a tall bell tower, hiding on top of the supports inside, above the bell, where the ringer wouldn't see her. She peered out the small window in the top of the tower. It was just barely wide enough to fit her shoulders through, but at the same time, the window allowed her to get a wide range of angles, instead of straight forwards, like she usually had to do.

Scanning the busy town below, she saw Armada soldiers lining the walls of the buildings, one standing at each column, keeping the citizens in check. Her target was supposedly an officer that usually came out of the same building every single day at 1530. She saw him, amongst several others that were with him, he being the only officer in the group. He stood still whilst the rest of his group separated into different directions, staring at the path ahead of him.

She waited. There was absolutely no way she could shoot that far, not with her rifle. So she waited for him to come closer, and when he was almost close enough, she raised her rifle to her eye, focusing on his neck so the charge will damage some of the main gears.

She fired, sending the charge straight through his neck, just as she expected it would, just before he turned around a corner. She she moved and positioned herself so she could just see the officer fall flat on his face next to an alleyway, where other Armada soldiers could assume he was shot by someone _in_ the alley, which there wasn't.

After waiting an hour to make sure that the cost was clear to leave, the town was silent.

To Helen, silence was music to her ears, and she loved it.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! xD**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	97. Chapter 97

**97: Unreal**

Cadiz began to crumble right before her eyes. Giant chunks of metal falling dangerously close to their ship. Helen urged Sestiva to run faster, even though she was already running as fast as she could.

"COME ON, SESTIVA!" Helen urged, watching her little sister trying to go as fast as she could. "CADIZ WILL COLLAPSE IN ON ITSELF ANY MINUTE COME ON!"

Sestiva tried to jump aboard the ship. Though the gangplanks were pulled up already for a quick getaway, she managed to get half her body onto the deck, her hands trying desperately to get a grip on the wood of the deck. Helen, knowing that Sestiva would be able to pull herself on, turned she ship around, pulling as far away from Cadiz as she could.

With one last heave, Sestiva pushed herself upward, giving her enough space to bring her legs around and onto the deck of the skiff. She knew she had almost no time to take however long she wants to lower the sails like she usually had done in the past. In this situation, not making a fast getaway meant death, and she definitely didn't want to be known as the pirate that saved the spiral, but died in the process of getting away from the falling fortress.

She pulled the sails down, easily catching the wind, feeling a jolt as the ship gradually sped up. All Sestiva could do was pray that she couldn't die, that she could get back to Skull Island alive and well, not just some corpse that is left to rot there and die.

Cadiz was falling apart even faster than before as Pathogen spread throughout the fortress. Sestiva could see that on the side, the crystals were poking out of the thick brass like the brass was made out of paper, forming in every angle known to her. Some stretched all the way up to the middle of Cadiz in a staircase like pattern.

Helen on the other hand, had already gotten to the opposite end of the Skyway, preparing to sail directly into the Storm gate. She wouldn't waste a single _second_ on turning around to see how much damage had been done to Cadiz.

They _flew_ through the gate, into Avernus Skyway, continuing to sail as far away as they could before tons of debris that fell in the storm gate later wouldn't be swept around in the high winds and tear up the sails.

Passing through another storm gate into Monquista, Sestiva finally was able to pull the sails back up. They were safe enough for now.

The sister could both feel the ship slow down, being about half the speed as it once was, the windlane doing all the work of pulling them through, giving Sestiva and Helen the chance to finally rest and relax after that.

Helen couldn't believe what she just did.

Cadiz was gone.

There was just no way.

She couldn't believe she actually did it.

To her, it was so unreal, that she had to believe it was unreal. They did it. They _escaped_.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	98. Chapter 98

**98: Olympian**

She was standing in the corner of the room, in one of the back rooms in the Tavern. She had been matched up against someone who looked around ten times stronger than her. She got her weapon ready, preparing for her opponent to attack her first.

She was right.

Her opponent was towering above her. He had to be at least six feet tall. He made the first move, advancing towards her with no weapon.

_He doesn't have a weapon? How is he going to fight with his fists when I have a staff with a blade? I'm going to end up killing him aren't I? Oh well, his loss, not mine. Like I should care anyways. _

She was wrong. He _did_ in fact have a weapon with him. A large sword strapped to his back, his hand reaching behind his back to grip the handle of the blade. He swung at her _hard_. She managed to block it in time, only to nearly lose her balance. The wall behind her was the only thing that was keeping her from falling down.

Being the smaller person had an advantage. Sestiva smirked, angering the larger pirate. She ducked, sliding in between his legs and jumping up to turning around to cast a SoulReaver spell on him. Crossing over to the other side of the room where she waited yet again for his approach.

He was strong, but he wasn't very smart. He turned around, doing the same exact thing he did the previous time. Sestiva saw everything coming. She easily dodged out of the way, his sword was up to the handle in the wall. For that purpose, so blades don't go into other sparring rooms, they made the walls thicker. Even he, the strongest in the room couldn't pull it out of the wall. He had nothing left but his own fists to do the work.

Sestiva wished she learned some more spells over the course of the past couple of weeks. She only was able to cast about four of them. She'd spent so much time perfecting the only four that she knew that she had no time to learn anything else.

She jumped up and brought the butt of her staff down hard on his head. She had recently enforced iron into it, which helped her give a harder hit than it would with the original wooden end.

He fell to the ground on his face. He stood up, turning around to face her. She thought he was going to attack again. Instead, he raised his hands up in surrender, not saying a word. She nodded. They shook hands, and left the sparring room. She had won. It was her first victory in a _while. _She matched herself up against the strongest pirates on Skull Island. She realized her mistake when she was majorly defeated by a pirate that always went on missions down in Mooshu and went down to Valencia to watch over Sivella once.

Now, she felt like a champion.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review!**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


	99. Chapter 99

**99: Forgiveness**

"Why are you so selfish?" Helen scolded, Sestiva standing beside her at the ship's wheel. "We just finished blowing up Fort Elena _together_ and now you're telling _me_ that you wanted to do it all by yourself without my help?!"

"_Yes,_ I'm telling you now." Sestiva snapped, gripping the railing in front of her, glaring at Helen. "This was supposed to be all about _me_, not with _you_ included in it. Why couldn't you just stay at home and let me be? You never let me do anything!"

"Sestiva, you don't understand. I was just tryi—"

"To make sure I was _safe?! _You just _made_ me drag you along because _you_ wanted to watch over me like I was some _child_ that couldn't take care of myself! You are the selfish one, Helen. You're the one who makes me do whatever you want me to do. I don't _care_ if it's to keep me safe, let me do what I feel like doing in _peace._"

"What am I supposed to do while you're not there anyways?"

"Oh maybe you should do what you always tell me to do. Something like…_practice_. Or do what you always do. Absolutely _nothing_. You've been practically useless the whole trip. All you've done is sail the ship and boss me around like I'm some sort of _servant_ to you. Otherwise you just waited for me to come back from whatever I was doing. _This_ is the whole reason I _wanted_ to come alone. It's all because of you and you _know _it, but yet you still insist on coming no matter what my desires _are_! Can't you just have some self awareness and give me some personal space?!"

"Sestiva, you _never_ told me you didn't want me to come. I came along because you knew you didn't know how to sail! If you can't get that past your thick-skulled mind, then there's something wrong with you. If you want me to dumb it down to your intelligence level, then I won't hesitate to do so. You could learn some sort of self awareness yourself. If you were self aware then you would realize how annoying, rude, selfish, and obnoxious you are being right now."

"You have no right to—"

"I have _every_ right to say something like that. I say it because it's true. I would _never_ lie to my sister. _Never_. I _need _you to stop thinking this is all about you. It's about me too, I _helped_ you, and you're treating me like some sort of worthless being!"

"I didn't think anything like that! I apologize for what you think I treated you like. Will you _ever_ forgive me."

"You're my _sister_. Of _course_ I forgive you, spoiled brat."

"So I'm a spoiled brat now?"

"I was being sarcastic, Sestiva."

"So about Fort Elena. I now say that we did it _together_, didn't we? And we shall do the same with Cadiz am I right?"

" Agreed. We can't really survive without each other anyways."

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**I'm sorry this chapter is so dialogue heavy but regardless, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review! :3**

**-Samantha Hawkins **


	100. Chapter 100

**100: Ending**

Sestiva and Helen pulled their ship into the dock. They put the gangplanks down. They had traveled all the way through Mooshu and Marleybone, Marleybone being a warzone, in a single night. They didn't even stop to rest. They hadn't slept in days after they saw Cadiz fall right before their eyes, with all its glory. The Armada was stopped. They were no more.

She hopped off the ship, without the gangplank, landing on the dock, her legs nearly giving way. She glanced around at Skull Island. It was like nothing had changed ever since they left. Of course it hasn't, how could Sestiva be so stupid. They haven't heard that Cadiz fell yet. Probably because Sestiva and Helen were the only ones who actually knew what happened.

"Helen, are you coming?" Sestiva asked, glancing up at her sister, shielding her eyes from the bright sun with her arm.

"Give me a minute," Helen replied, coming back from the ship's wheel, grabbing her rifle on the way down. She too, was too lazy to put the gangplanks down and simply just jumped off, landing sturdily on her feet, knees bent so that her legs wouldn't snap in two.

They took notice of every detail on Skull Island, just to re-familiarize themselves with their old home. It _had_ been around a month since they left for Cadiz. They walked together through the sandy beaches that covered around sixty-percent of Skull Island's grounds. Other pirates looked at them like they were revived from the dead.

They've probably been gone for so long that they thought that both Sestiva and Helen were dead. They continued on, ignoring all the stares they were getting. They were going to tell Avery what they had done, and if he didn't believe them, they would drag him over to Valencia themselves and _show _it to him. He'll believe them for sure.

They strode through the courtyard in front of his office.

"Sestiva and Helen are back?" a pirate near them whispered to his friend. Practically everyone on Skull Island knew each other. "I thought they were dead!"

"Are you saying that they survived Cadiz?" his friend whispered back. "There's no way they brought it down, but at least got away before they got killed."

"Woah. That's really cool. For two pirates that young?"

They pushed the doors open to Avery's office and went straight to Avery, pushing past younger pirates that were just starting to enroll in their classes. To prepare and fight against the Armada. Too late. The Armada was already gone.

"What do you two girls want?" Avery asked snobbishly, hands behind his back, nose in the air. "You've been gone for a month. The whole island thought you were dead!"

"We brought Cadiz down, and all of its glory went down with it. The middle of Valencia is now just a gaping hole of nothingness. It's gone. You're training these pirates for nothing. They can go and do what they're not forced to do." Helen said coolly, trying to explode in rage.

His face was one of shock. He couldn't believe it. They actually took down Cadiz. Not the strongest, best pirates, that he sent down to Cadiz, which he sent in the hundreds. Just two girls.

"I guess it's time to tell the whole island of your victory then!"

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**I hope you enjoyed the final chapter of the 100 Word Challenge and please leave a review!  
**

**I really enjoyed this myself it was extremely fun to write. ****  
**

**I do have a sequel for Pathogen called Pandemic and I hope you enjoy that too which will be uploaded this coming Sunday! :D**

**-SamanthaHawkins **


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